Description: A small (7-8mm) metallic green or bronze ground beetle. Occurs in saltmarshes and estuaries, usually among rotting seaweed or under driftwood on the strandline. East coast only.

NI account: Recorded from a handful of estuaries on the coasts of Louth, Meath and Dublin (Johnson & Halbert, 1902). No recent reports.

Ecology: Habitat requirements appear very similar to those of Pogonus chalceus.

Distribution: A coastal Mediterranean-Atlantic species (91) found along western and southern coasts in Europe from Germany and the British Isles south to the Iberian Peninsula and east to the Black Sea.

Similar Species: Pogonus chalceus: anterior transverse impression on pronotum punctate; elytral striae not evident to apex (P. luridipennis: elytra and legs pale)

Key Identification Features:

• Sea shore species
• Medium, metallic, diurnal
• Last segment of palpi normal
• Unicolourous metallic
• Anterior transverse depression on pronotum smooth
• Elytral striae visible to apex

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

iNaturalist: Pogonus littoralis at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Pogonus littoralis | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Pogonus

Thumbnails for genus Pogonus