Description: A moderate-sized (8.5-12mm), long-legged, black ground beetle. Common found under bark in wet woodland and general in scrubby marshes and fens.

NI account: Widespread and usually abundant in its habitat.

Ecology: Stenotopic for wet woodland and carr, and becoming commoner in recent years, sometimes spilling over into other habitats. Characteristic of wet alder woodland in river valleys or lakeshores, where it is common hibernating under the bark of dead standing timber.

Distribution: A Eurasian temperate species (75) distributed across most of Europe, south to northern Spain and Italy, and east into Siberia as far as the Lena.

Similar Species: Nebria brevicollis, salina: mentum lacking median tooth; pronotum broader, nearly as broad as elytra.

Key Identification Features:

• Medium/large, black, pronotum cordate with sides broadly depressed (Fig. 74), narrower than elytra
• Legs long and slender
• Mentum with median tooth (Fig. 103)
• Claws simple
• Legs dark
• Tarsi without median furrow
• Elytra with 3 setiferous punctures

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

iNaturalist: Platynus assimilis at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Platynus assimilis | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Platynus

Thumbnails for genus Platynus