Description: A small (3.5-4.2mm), pubescent, blackish-brown ground beetle of open, sandy or peaty ground, especially on upland heather moors. Locally common in the north, rarer elsewhere.

NI account: Widespread but very local, mainly on high ground.

Ecology: Favours well-drained peat with low Calluna or sandy moraine in heaths and mountains.

Distribution: A circumpolar Wide-Boreal species (36), found from southern Britain and Austria north to the Arctic Circle and east across Siberia into northern North America.

Similar Species: Dicheirotrichus placidus: larger (4-5.5mm); first two or three antennal segments pale; legs dark

Key Identification Features:

• Small (3.5-4.2mm), fairly convex and short-legged
• Lateral margins of upper surface punctate and pubescent
• Pronotum with rounded hind angles
• Abbreviated scutellar striae absent
• Only first antennal segment pale, legs dark

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

iNaturalist: Dicheirotrichus cognatus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Dicheirotrichus cognatus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Dicheirotrichus

Thumbnails for genus Dicheirotrichus