Description: A 6.5-9mm long brownish to black ground beetle with conspicuous yellow legs. Very common under stones and among litter or on mud at the side of streams and rivers.

NI account: Widespread and abundant near water throughout Ireland.

Ecology: A ubiquitous riparian species. Sometimes common in other kinds of wet places including man-made quarry holes and semisaline habitats.

Distribution: A difficult species to classify, but probably best described as European Wide-temperate (63), with a wide distribution in Europe from southern Fennoscandia to southern Spain and Italy and into north Africa and Asia Minor, but particularly abundant near Atlantic coasts.

Similar Species: Platynus obscurus: pronotum cordate and narrower than head; tarsi lacking median furrow; elytra with 3 setiferous punctures.

Key Identification Features:

• Medium, brown, pronotum cordate but wider than head
• Legs long and slender
• Mentum with median tooth (Fig. 103)
• Claws simple
• Legs pale
• Tarsi with median furrow
• Elytra with 2 setiferous punctures

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

iNaturalist: Paranchus albipes at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Paranchus albipes | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Paranchus

Thumbnails for genus Paranchus