''Carabus auronitens'' is a species of

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

in family

Carabidae Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, the Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, around 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe. As of 2015, it is one of the 10 most species-rich animal fam ...

which was described by

Johan Christian Fabricius Johan Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoology, zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, an ...

in 1792.

Subspecies

Subspecies include: BioLib.cz
/ref> *''Carabus auronitens auronitens'' Fabricius, 1792 *''Carabus auronitens costellatus'' Géhin, 1882 *''Carabus auronitens cupreonitens'' Chevrolat, 1861 *''Carabus auronitens escheri'' Palliardi, 1825 *''Carabus auronitens farinesi'' Dejean, 1826 *''Carabus auronitens festivus'' Dejean, 1826 *''Carabus auronitens intercostatus'' Gredler, 1854 *''Carabus auronitens kraussi'' Lapouge, 1898 *''Carabus auronitens montanus'' Géhin, 1882 *''Carabus auronitens punctatoauratus'' Germar, 1824

Description

This species grows to a size of . The

elytra An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs ( Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes altern ...

and the head are shiny, with different colours: red golden, red green or more rarely blue. The

prothorax The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum (dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on e ...

is narrow at the base and reddish copper in colour. The colours are very variable from one specimen to another. Each

elytron An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs ( Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...

has a granular surface with three sturdy, dark longitudinal veins. The legs are black, except the

femora The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with t ...

, which are red. The

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

e are also black but the first segments are red. This species can be distinguished from ''

Carabus auratus ''Carabus auratus'', the golden ground beetle, is a species of ground beetle in the genus Carabus. This species is native to central and western Europe and has been introduced into North America. Description The flightless beetle reaches a body ...

'', a similar species, by its longitudinal veins and its antennae: ''Carabus auratus'' has green-gold veins and its first four antenna segments are red.

Distribution and habitat

This species is found in

central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the ...

eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...

and

western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

. It is absent from northern Europe as well as south of the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...

in western Europe. This species lives in humid, cool

deciduous forest In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, af ...

s and

mixed forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These fo ...

s, and also in unwooded areas at high elevations. It can be found under loose bark or in dead wood, and also in bogs, especially in mountains or in foreland up to . In western Europe it is also found in plains.

Life cycle

Adults appear from May to September. The

imago In biology, the imago (Latin for "image") is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it is also called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity. It follows the fi ...

is mainly nocturnal and predates on smaller animals such as

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete worm ...

s or

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s. The larva climbs up trees to about and

pupate A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

s after three moults. Hatching occurs near the end of summer or the beginning of autumn. They then spend the winter under bark, in gaps in dead wood as well as in tree stubs and will be active the following year.

Gallery

File: Carabidae - Carabus auronitens auronitens (female).jpg, ''Carabus auronitens auronitens''. Female File:Golden Ground Beetle (Carabus auronitens auronitens) hibernating in dead wood (13537438064).jpg, ''Carabus auronitens auronitens'' hibernating in dead wood File:Golden Ground Beetle (Chrysocarabus auronitens festivus) close-up (8337429291).jpg, ''Carabus auronitens festivus'' File:Carabus auronitens escheri Palliardi, 1825.jpg, ''Carabus auronitens escheri''

References

External links

Natur in Nordrhein-Westfalens INPN
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1535734 Beetles described in 1792 Beetles of Europe auronitens Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius