Description: Very small (2.5-3.2mm) black ground beetle with bluish reflection found on mud and sandy mud on the coast and in estuaries. Local, southern.

NI account: A more southern species than B. minimum and not recorded north of Dublin. Johnson & Halbert (1902) give records for Dublin, Waterford and Mayo. Two modern records: North Bull saltmarsh, Raheny, RA, 1982; Lough Gill, Dingle Peninsula, Kerry, J. Good, Sept/Oct 1996.

Ecology: A saltmarsh (halophilic) species restricted to fine sand or silt in the upper tidal zone.

Distribution: A coastal species like B. minimum but of narrower range, distributed along the coasts of south and west Europe from the British Isles and Holland to the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean. Mediterranean-Atlantic (91).

Similar Species: Bembidion minimum: legs and antennae dark; also a seashore species

Key Identification Features:

• Very small (2.5-3.2mm)
• Terminal segment of palpi much reduced (Fig. 31)
• Mainly dark but with tibiae and first antennal segment lighter
• On the seashore only
• Pronotum cordate but narrower and with more elevated base than minimum (Fig. 48)
• Frontal furrows single

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

iNaturalist: Bembidion normannum at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Bembidion