Description: 13-16mm long, slightly metallic brown-black ground beetle. Usually recorded on the shore near to docklands, having been introduced from North Africa by shipping.

NI account: Mainly recorded as an immigrant around large ports e.g. Belfast and Dublin.

Ecology: Occupies waste ground near the upper shore or in parks and gardens along the coast. Occasionally found in sand dunes.

Distribution: Like Sphodrus, an immigrant from the Mediterranean to western Europe, but it is less synanthropic than that species and has become established in open sites near ports on the coast. Suboceanic Southern-temperate (82) in distribution, and found from the British Isles and Belgium along the French coast south to the Iberian Peninsula and Italy, but indigenous only in north Africa.

Similar Species: Laemostenus terricola: pronotum strongly narrowed to base (Fig. 73); meta-tibiae with dense brush of pubescence on the inside near the apex; male with 4 dilated pro-tarsal segments and curved meso-tibiae

Key Identification Features:

• Body large, legs long and slender
• Pronotum cordate and weakly narrowed to base (Fig. 73)
• Meta-tibiae lacking pubescence on the inside near the apex
• Male with 3 dilated pro-tarsal segments

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

iNaturalist: Laemostenus complanatus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Laemostenus complanatus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Laemostenus

Thumbnails for genus Laemostenus