Description: A 6-9mm long ground beetle with two colour forms - black with a bright red pronotum (type form), or all black. The type form is widespread in fairly dry conditions and the dark form occurs in high mountains on morainic substrates.

NI account: Widespread and common in dryish open habitats, including coastal sites and mountains.

Ecology: Primarily a grassland species, preferring coarse textured, well-drained soils. In coastal sites there is little overlap, however, with the very similar C. cinctus. The latter prefers sparsely vegetated loose sand fore dune habitats whereas C. melanocephalus occupies dune grassland or dune heath habitats.

Distribution: A species with an exceptionally wide latitudinal range, best described as Eurosiberian Boreo-temperate (54), but as it also occurs in the Arctic biome of northern Fennoscandia and on northern mountains, Eurosiberian Wide-Boreal could also be applied. Widely distributed across Europe, except the extreme south and south-west, to the Caucasus and east to Trans-Baikal in Siberia.

Similar Species: Calathus cinctus: elytral intervals slightly convex; head and elytra brown, unmetallic C. mollis: pronotum brown, like the head and elytra, never rufous

Key Identification Features:

• Body medium sized, slender, legs long
• Tarsal claws serrate (Fig. 72)
• Pronotum broad, little rounded, with sides almost parallel in basal half (Fig. 68) and hind angles not sharp
• Third elytral interval with three or more setiferous punctures
• Pronotum clear rufous, but note the montane v. nubigena with brown pronotum (Plate )
• Elytral intervals flat
• Head and elytra black; elytra often with faint greenish lustre

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

iNaturalist: Calathus melanocephalus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Calathus melanocephalus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Calathus

Thumbnails for genus Calathus