Description: 12-14mm long shiny black ground beetle. Predatory, usually living under stones or in heather litter on moorland. There is a single Irish record.

NI account: Reported as an Irish species by Luff (1998) on the basis of material he had seen from Waterford. We have no further knowledge of this record.

Ecology: In Britain and the Continent this is a forest species but also found in dwarf shrub heath of hills in the northern parts of Britain.

Distribution: A European temperate species (73) found from the British Isles east to Perm in Russia, south to Serbia and north into southern Fennoscandia and Finland.

Similar Species: Pterostichus madidus: elytra usually with 1 inter-strial puncture; elytral intervals flatter; femora often red, or black P. aterrimus: glossy; elytra punctures conspicuous, foveate

Key Identification Features:

• Large species, black
• Pronotum with hind angles completely rounded (Fig. 60)
• Elytra with 3 non-foveate inter-strial punctures
• Elytral intervals convex
• Femora black

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

iNaturalist: Pterostichus aethiops at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Pterostichus aethiops | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Pterostichus

Thumbnails for genus Pterostichus