Description: A 6-7.5mm black ground beetle with greenish metallic reflections. Very local in fen carr and wet riverine wooded swamps.

NI account: Extremely local in Ireland. Most modern records are for the north-eastern coastline of Lough Neagh. Otherwise recorded from Upper Lough Erne, Fermanagh, Castle Caldwell, western Lower Lough Erne, and counties North and South Kerry, Mid Cork and Limerick.

Ecology: On Lough Neagh, it is strongly associated with wet alder carr on water-logged lakeshore soils. Often found hibernating under the bark of dead, upright alders with Agonum assimile. Generally found elsewhere on the flooded, wooded margins of large water bodies.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian Boreo-temperate species (54) found across Europe except the south, and eastwards into west Siberia.

Similar Species: Agonum piceum: elytra parallel-sided rather than widening apically; pronotum a different shade from elytra (Agonum scitulum: antennae dark brown, first segment little paler; legs brown with darker femora; elytral epipleura dark)

Key Identification Features:

• Medium, pronotum narrower than elytra, hind angles rounded
• Legs long and slender
• Mentum with median tooth (Fig. 103)
• Claws simple
• Third antennal segment pubescent, at least apically
• Wings full
• Pronotum barely wider than one elytron
• Upper surface black with greenish or bronze reflection
• First antennal segment and elytral epipleura brown

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

iNaturalist: Agonum micans at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Agonum micans | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Agonum

Thumbnails for genus Agonum