Description: 9.5-12mm long black phytophagous ground beetle. Confined to gravelly moraines and shallow ranker soils on or near mountain summits. Very local.

NI account: Only two sites known from both of which it has recently been recorded: Little Sugar Loaf, Wicklow (Anderson, 1987) and Black Head in the Burren, Clare (Morris, 1967). A very local montane species.

Ecology: Montane in Ireland, living among boulders in deep Calluna on the Little Sugar Loaf and under stones among low herbs on bare limestone at Black Head. Also recorded from the summit of Great Sugarloaf, Wicklow. Regarded as a forest species in northern Europe.

Distribution: A Eurasian Boreo-arctic Montane species (25), widespread in northern Europe and Siberia to the Pacific. In the south it reaches the Caucasus via montane habitats.

Similar Species: Harpalus latus: 3rd elytral intervals with single punctures medially H. anxius/tardus: base of pronotum smooth or only slightly punctured

Key Identification Features:

• Characteristically stocky, broad, legs short
• Head with one supra orbital puncture
• Hind angles of pronotum without setae
• Upper surface black
• Apex of 7th elytral interval with a single puncture
• Base of pronotum with extensive wrinkled punturation
• 3rd elytral interval with 2-3 punctures medially

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

iNaturalist: Harpalus laevipes at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Harpalus