Description: A small (7-8mm) bronze ground beetle with ocellate elytral depressions, living in marshy places, lake margins, bogs, reedbeds etc. Very local and rare in Ireland.

NI account: In Ireland only known from a small area in the Killarney district of Kerry, and from a site at Glengariff, West Cork, although widespread in south-west Britain and parts of western Scotland (Luff, 1998). Recently discovered in a remote bog in Connemara (see map) so may be more widespread but overlooked.

Ecology: A fen species occupying open sites along the margins of lakes and marshes. Its apparent rarity in Ireland is difficult to account for.

Distribution: A Eurasian Wide-temperate species (65), scattered over the whole of Europe except the extreme north and the extreme south, east to Asia Minor and Iran and into Siberia as far as Kamchatka.

Similar Species: Elaphrus cupreus: tibiae metallic; head with eyes broader than pronotum

Key Identification Features:

• Eyes large
• Elytra without regular striae, uneven with mirror spots
• Tibiae unmetallic
• Elytra shiny, bronze or greenish
• Head with eyes not wider than pronotum

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

iNaturalist: Elaphrus uliginosus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Elaphrus uliginosus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Elaphrus

Thumbnails for genus Elaphrus