Description: A medium to large (10-17mm) pubescent black beetle with red legs. Common in grassland, gardens, arable land, waste ground etc. Phytophagous, sometimes a pest of strawberries.

NI account: Widespread and common on agricultural soils at low altitude.

Ecology: Eurytopic on agricultural soils, mainly on arable land, but also widely in hedgebanks and waste places. Not recorded from deep peat, and therefore absent from large areas of the north and west.

Distribution: A Eurasian Wide-temperate species (65) found south across Europe to north Africa, Macaronesia, Asia Minor and Iran, and east across Siberia to Japan. Introduced in North America.

Similar Species: All other Irish Harpalus lack puncturation and pubescence on inner elytral intervals and base of pronotum

Key Identification Features:

• Characteristically stocky, broad, legs short
• Head with one supra orbital puncture
• Hind angles of pronotum without setae
• All elytral intervals and base of pronotum punctured and pubescent
• Large, black, all appendages pale

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

iNaturalist: Harpalus rufipes at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Harpalus rufipes | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Harpalus

Thumbnails for genus Harpalus