Description: 3.5-4mm long yellowish-brown ground beetle. Very common in a variety of habitats from gardens to montane peatlands and hill summits.

NI account: Widely distributed and generally abundant across Ireland and Britain. Particularly common on hill land.

Ecology: Eurytopic and recorded from agricultural land, particularly hedgerows (Asteraki et al., 1995), open woods, marshes, lakeshores and montane peat. It appears rarer in coastal dune systems and some types of agricultural land where it may be replaced by the closely related T. quadristriatus. As far as our experience goes, the species is exclusively brachypterous in Ireland.

Distribution: A European Wide-temperate species (63). Found from south-western Fennoscandia to Spain and Italy, and into north Africa, but overall with a moderately strong western restriction and not recorded farther east than the western Balkans. Introduced widely in North America.

Similar Species: Trechus quadristriatus: wings full T. rivularis: size>4mm; base of pronotum straight (Fig. 37)

Key Identification Features:

• Sutural stria of elytra recurrent at apex (Fig. 35)
• Frontal furrows running round to the back of the eyes (Fig. 32)
• Elytra glabrous
• Base of pronotum oblique laterally (Fig. 36)
• Elytral striae shallow, almost impunctate
• Wings reduced
• Less than 4mm

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

iNaturalist: Trechus obtusus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Trechus obtusus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Trechus

Thumbnails for genus Trechus