Description: An medium-small (7-9mm) attractive bright orange and black Badister. Found in damp leaf litter and moss, in wooded swamps. Very local and south-western.

NI account: Local and rare and only in the south-west. Johnson & Halbert (1902) quote an unlocalised old record for Waterford but it has been taken on several occasions from the Killarney District of Kerry. There is a 1985 record for the River Fergus at Dromore, Clare (R. Anderson, unpublished) and two 2017/2019 records for Limerick: Barrigone and Cappagh (Alan Brown).

Ecology: Stenotopic for forest swamps along the richly vegetated margins of lakes and slow rivers.

Distribution: A European temperate species (73) distributed from northern and western Europe to Asia Minor, the Caucasus and west Siberia.

Similar Species: Badister bullatus: indistinguishable except on smaller size, normal-sized head and scutellum which is darker than the rest of the elytra B. meridionalis: indistinguishable except on smaller size, normal-sized head and scutellum which is darker than the rest of the elytra

Key Identification Features:

• Medium, elytra iridescent and with fine, impunctate striae
• Mandibles asymmetric, right mandible having a large dorsal tubercle and notch (Fig. 104), as bullatus
• Second segment of antennae very short, first clear rufous
• Pronotum rufous, head black, elytra rufous with black 'hook' mark
• Size >7mm
• Scutellum pale, similar to rest of elytra

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

iNaturalist: Badister unipustulatus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Badister unipustulatus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Badister

Thumbnails for genus Badister