Description: Small (4-5.5mm) bronze diurnal ground beetle of dry gravelly conditions, often at altitude in mountains. Only one Irish site so far.

NI account: A recent discovery in the Irish fauna, taken for the first time from summit moraine on Slieve Donard, the highest peak of the Mourne Mountains, Down, by Alexander (1993). It has since been taken on Slieve Commedagh, Mournes and on sandy Island Roaringwater Bay, West Cork in 2010 (Tom Daguerre).

Ecology: In Ireland, restricted to dry places on higher mountains, or coastal dune heath. Very rare and scattered.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian Wide-temperate species (64), very locally distributed from western and central Europe to the Caucasus and West Siberia. Only recorded from the north of the Iberian Peninsula and southern in Fennoscandia. Widespread, if local, in the mountains of northern and western Britain (Luff, 1998).

Similar Species: Notiophilus aquaticus: elytra with one pre-apical puncture (Fig. 11)

Key Identification Features:

• Eyes large
• Small shiny, parallel-sided species
• Dark bronze
• Tibiae black
• 2nd elytral interval > 3 times as broad as third (Fig. 10)
• Elytra with two pre-apical punctures (Fig.11)

Distribution Map from NBN: Notiophilus aestuans at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Notiophilus aestuans at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Notiophilus aestuans | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Notiophilus

Thumbnails for genus Notiophilus