Description: Small (3.2-3.7mm) shiny black ground beetle similar to B. assimile with pale elytral apices but shiny pronotum. Usually in fen carr or wet woodland, also wooded turloughs. Rare.

NI account: This species is recorded with decreasing frequency in Britain (Luff, 1998). In most of central and southern Ireland there is little evidence of decline but it has contracted its range in northern counties and there is only a single recent record, for a wooded fen on the east shore of Lough Neagh, Antrim.

Ecology: A hygrophilous species preferring wooded fens, turloughs and lakeshores.

Distribution: An Oceanic temperate species (71) distributed locally in western Europe from south-west Fennoscandia to northern Spain.

Similar Species: Bembidion fumigatum: larger (3.5-4mm); elytra with variegations (Fig. 46) B. assimile: subapical spots on elytra sharper and/or larger; pronotum dull from microsculpture

Key Identification Features:

• Small (3.2-3.7mm)
• Terminal segment of palpi much reduced (Fig. 31)
• With metallic sheen, elytral subapical spot faint or absent
• Frontal furrows double throughout (Fig. 47)
• Pronotum shiny due to reduced microsculpture

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

iNaturalist: Bembidion clarkii at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Bembidion