Description: A 3-4mm long yellowish ground beetle with metallic green foreparts. On sheltered tidal mud or sand of saltmarshes and estuaries, under Ulva and litter on the strandline.

NI account: Restricted to sheltered inlets and estuaries but very widespread and fairly common.

Ecology: Stenotopic for sheltered, usually estuarine, mudflats with fine sand or gravel on the upper middle and upper shores. Typically found under stones or deposits of Ulva and Enteromorpha on or near the strandline, but can withstand considerable periods of immersion in saltwater. Found closer to the open sea on estuaries than either B. lunatum or B. maritimum. It feeds largely on talitrids.

Distribution: A Suboceanic Southern-temperate species (82) found on coasts from southern Denmark and the British Isles south to the Iberian Peninsula and north Africa but not in the eastern Mediterranean.

Key Identification Features:

• Small, head very broad at neck (Fig. 55)
• Terminal segment of palpi much reduced (Fig. 31)
• Elytra with four setiferous punctures
• Exclusively marine
• Foreparts with a green reflection, elytra yellowish

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

iNaturalist: Bembidion laterale at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Bembidion laterale | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Bembidion

Thumbnails for genus Bembidion