Description: A 6.5-9mm long brownish black Amara. Phytophagous. Common in open dryish habitat like gardens, field margins and waste ground.

NI account: Widespread and fairly common near the coast, much rarer inland.

Ecology: Xerophilous and restricted to well-drained soils, usually on arable land, and then near the coast. The only inland records we have are for the Lagan Valley west of Belfast and for Greenmount College at Antrim, where it occurs respectively at the margins of arable plots on well-drained Lagan Clays and on tilled, Tertiary Basalt soils.

Distribution: A circumpolar Boreo-temperate species (56) found across Europe, Asia Minor and Siberia into N. America.

Similar Species: Amara fulva: broad, flat; elytral striae moderate; upper surface pale (yellow to brown) with greenish reflection

Key Identification Features:

• Body cylindrical, convex, with a characteristic 'oval' shape
• Head with two supra orbital punctures
• Elytra lacking pore-puncture at base of scutellar stria
• Terminal spur of pro-tibia simple
• Pronotum with sinuate sides, hind angles slightly denticulate (Fig. 86)
• Elytral striae strongly punctate and impressed
• Upper surface dark brown, bronzed, appendages pale, rufous

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

iNaturalist: Amara apricaria at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Amara apricaria | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Amara

Thumbnails for genus Amara