Abax parallelepipedus

Large wide- beetle ( Abax parallelepipedus )

• Abax parallelepipedus parallelepipedus
• Abax parallelepipedus germanus

The Great Wide beetle ( Abax parallelepipedus ) is a beetle of the family of ground beetles ( Carabidae ).

Features

The Great Wide beetle is a 16 to 21 millimeters tall, broad, deep matt black colored beetles. Its elytra are längsgerillt. On the pronotum two unbent elongated pits, also located on both sides of the base to the front extending out into the middle of a channel. The pronotum is narrower at the front, on the basis he is just a little narrower than the elytra. The bottom of the last Tarsenglieder are hairy.

Occurrence

The animals arrive in Europe to southern Scandinavia, especially in humid forests, clearings and hedgerows in the mountain foothills and at high elevations to about 2,000 meters in front. They prefer loamy or chalky soil, and especially beech forests. They are found from April to September under moss, stones, bark of dead wood or in rotten tree stumps.

Way of life

The adults and larvae feed on predatory insects and snails. The females wrap their eggs after laying a layer of soil. The larvae can be found under stones and in rotting wood. The larvae overwinter, partially but so do the imagines.