Description: Small (2.8-3.5mm) black ground beetle with pale elytral apices and dull pronotum. At the margin of standing water in turloughs, marshes and under seaweed on the strandline of rocky coasts.

NI account: Locally common on gravelly or sandy lakeshores and along the coast in sheltered localities. Has disappeared from Lough Neagh within the last 100 years.

Ecology: A hygrophilous species recorded from the margins of still or slow-moving eutrophic water-bodies inland or sheltered beaches on the coast. In coastal sites it has been found under seaweed and tidal refuse on the upper shore of gravelly or rocky shorelines. In these places it is usually the only Bembidion sp. present.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian Wide-temperate species (64) distributed across Europe to north Africa and west Siberia.

Similar Species: Bembidion fumigatum: larger (3.5-4mm); elytra with variegations, B. clarkii: subapical spots on elytra faint or absent; pronotum shiny from reduced microsculpture

Key Identification Features:

• Very small (2.8-3.5mm)
• Terminal segment of palpi much reduced (Fig. 31)
• Upper surface with metallic reflection, and elytra with subapical spot
• Frontal furrows double throughout (Fig. 47)
• Pronotum dull from microsculpture

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

iNaturalist: Bembidion assimile at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Bembidion