Description: 7.5-9.5mm long metallic black ground beetle, living among rich vegetation in lake margins and less acid swamps and marshes. Widespread.

NI account: Widespread and fairly common on richer lakeshores throughout Ireland.

Ecology: Characteristic of muddy or silty lakeshores and riverbanks with rich emergent vegetation.

Distribution: A Eurasian temperate species (75) found across Europe to northern Spain and southern Italy, and east to the River Lena in Siberia.

Similar Species: Agonum afrum: unicolourous black; disk of pronotum duller from stronger microsculpture A. versutum: first antennal segment, tibiae and elytral epipleura dark rufous, not black; meta tarsi with shallow furrows

Key Identification Features:

• Small, pronotum narrower than elytra, hind angles rounded
• Legs long and slender
• Mentum with median tooth (Fig. 103)
• Claws simple
• Elytral intervals convex
• First antennal segment, tibiae and elytral epipleura black
• Upper surface shiny black with a metallic sheen
• Meta tarsi with deep furrows forming a central ridge (Fig. 76)
• Disk of pronotum shiny

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

iNaturalist: Agonum viduum at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Agonum