Description: 13-18mm long slightly metallic brown-black ground beetle. Often synanthropic in cellars, outhouses etc. Out-of-doors often found in badgers' setts and rabbit burrows. Widespread.

NI account: Widespread but very local, although probably under-recorded.

Ecology: In part synanthropic around buildings, where it may be difficult to detect, hiding deep in crevices of brickwork etc. during the day. Also recorded from the burrows of mammals, particularly the rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus L. Records are mainly for agricultural grassland, lightly wooded soils or sandy warrens near the coast i.e. places where rabbits might be expected to occur.

Distribution: A European Southern-temperate species (83) recorded from the whole of Europe except the extreme south, east to the Volga, but commonest in the west.

Similar Species: Laemostenus complanatus: pronotum weakly narrowed to base (Fig. 73); meta-tibiae without pubescence on the inside near the apex; male with 3 dilated pro-tarsal segments

Key Identification Features:

• Body large, legs long and slender
• Pronotum cordate and 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

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

iNaturalist: Laemostenus terricola at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Laemostenus