Description: Small (5-6mm) dark bronze ground beetle. Diurnal, living among low vegetation in grazed coastal marshes and low to moderate altitude peatlands. Widely distributed and locally common.

NI account: Widespread but local across Ireland.

Ecology: Slightly more hygrophilous than its near relatives, occasionally occupying marshy places but the majority of site records for Northern Ireland indicate relatively well-drained coastal habitats. There are no records for altitudes above 200m. More common here than N. germinyi as appears to be the case in south-east England, but not the rest of Britain (Luff, 1998). In Europe generally, described as hygrophilous (Lindroth, 1985; Marggi, 1992), occurring in shady places on humus-rich soil.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian Boreo-temperate species (54), widespread in Europe north to the Arctic Circle and east into western and central Siberia.

Similar Species: Notiophilus germinyi: frontal furrows nearly parallel (Fig. 12)

Key Identification Features:

• Eyes large
• Small shiny, parallel-sided species
• Dark bronze
• Tibiae pale
• 2nd elytral interval > 3 times as broad as third (Fig. 10)
• Frontal furrows forwardly diverging (Fig. 9)

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

iNaturalist: Notiophilus palustris at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Notiophilus