Description: An 8.5-12mm long black beetle with colourful and varied metallic reflections. The male is usually metallic bronze, green or blue, the female usually unmetallic black. Phytophagous. Common in dry grassland and coastal dunes.

NI account: Like the majority of Harpalus, this species is of restricted distribution due to the scarcity of free-draining soils, particularly in the west. Its range appears to be entirely coastal except for a few inland sites on sandy or morainic soils.

Ecology: Fairly eurytopic in areas which suit it, on arable land, in quarries, on dry grassland and on sand dunes at or near the coast.

Distribution: A Eurasian Wide-temperate (65) species and found across Europe except the extreme north, south to Asia Minor and Iran, and east to the River Lena in Siberia. Introduced in N. America.

Similar Species: With the exception of H. rufipes, in which all the elytral intervals and base of prontum are pubescent, other Irish Harpalus have glabrous elytra

Key Identification Features:

• Characteristically stocky, broad, legs short
• Head with one supra orbital puncture
• Hind angles of pronotum without setae
• Outer elytral intervals punctate and pubescent
• Upper surface metallic, variable in colour

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

iNaturalist: Harpalus affinis at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Harpalus