[ID] Ground Beetle: Notiophilus sp.

[Jason Green]

Afternoon all,

I found a Carabid today in a sparsely-vegetated area of soil. I've got it down as far as Genus, and though it looks like Notiophilus quadripunctatus to me - I've keyed it out from the dorsal photo as Notiophilus substriatus.

23/03/2010

Sparsely-vegetated bank...
...about 5mm - 5mm grid in base

Any ideas?

Thanks for looking!

Take care,

Jason

[Dogghound]

Notiophilus biguttatus

[Paul mabbott]

I'm inclined to agree with DH but, as is my way, can see several options on the photo!
Firstly in some keys/book there is confusion about the number of dorsal spots on Notiophilus biguttatus (and others) and N. quadripunctatus - this caused me lots of anguish when I first started identifying carabids because the then standard key (Lindroth - still very good) stated that N. quadripunctatus has, as you would expect from the name, four dorsal pits; in fact it usually has six but has four posterior ones clustered at the end of the elytra.

Otherwise N. rufipes and N. biguttatus are the most commonly encountered Notiophilus spp with N. substriatus is poor third!

I think this is N. biguttatus because of the slightly broader third interval but I'd rather see the beast under a microscope to check out the surface structure of the outer intervals ... I don't think it's really visible on your pictures. Good picture in the circumstances though!

[Jason Green]

Thanks both.

Paul, I had to trap this one in my specimen jar to photograph. It would have been impossible to get otherwise! It is now utterly indespensible for such usually fast-moving insects. I did get one in it's natural setting when I let it free.

I also managed this, when trapped...

23/03/2010

Twenty-four Spotted Ladybird

...again, it would have been impossible to photograph without a jar.