Description: 11-18mm long shining black ground beetle. Predatory, living on wet or very wet soils in hayfields, wet woods and swampy lakeshores. Widespread but local.

NI account: Mainly recorded from the Erne River System of Fermanagh and very thinly distributed elsewhere but confusion with other species is possible. Southern in Britain (Luff, 1998).

Ecology: Hygrophilous/thermophilous on partially shaded clayey or humus-rich soil on the margins of eutrophic lakes and, more locally, in fens. Found on arable land in central Europe (Lys & Nentwig, 1992), but has not been recorded either on arable land or agricultural grasslands in Ireland.

Distribution: A European temperate species (73), widely distributed in south, west and central Europe east to the Caucasus and Iran.

Similar Species: Pterostichus melanarius: pronotal hind angles denticulate, characteristic (Fig. 62); lateral bead of pronotum widening strongly at base; adominal segments of male, apices of elytra in female simple Pterostichus niger: pronotal angles slightly denticulate, characteristic (Fig. 62); abdominal segments of male, apices of elytra in female simple

Key Identification Features:

• Medium/large species, black
• Hind angles of pronotum sharp
• Pronotum with two basal foveae
• Pronotal angles scarcely denticulate (Fig. 62)
• Tarsal claw segment without setae underneath
• Last abdominal segment of male with a longitudinal keel
• Apices of elytra in female with sutural teeth (Fig. 63)
• Elytral epipleura crossed

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

iNaturalist: Pterostichus anthracinus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Pterostichus