Carabus auratus

Gold beetle ( Carabus auratus)

The gold beetle or Goldschmied ( Carabus auratus) is a beetle of the family of ground beetles ( Carabidae ).

Features

The beetles are 17 to 30 millimeters long. Your head, pronotum and elytra are colored green golden. In the latter three wide longitudinal ribs extend in the same color. At the end of the wing covers are cut, forming a small bulge. The first four antennal segments are red, the rest dark. The palps and legs are red. You can see the Gold Shiny beetle (C. auronitens ) are very similar, but this has only a red antennal segment and dark longitudinal ridges on the elytra.

Similar Species

• Gold Shiny beetle ( Carabus auronitens )

Occurrence

The heat-loving animals come into Central and Western Europe, east to Poland before, but the type continues to spread eastward. In the southwest of the Pyrenees are the distribution limit. They were introduced in the south of Scandinavia, the British Isles and in North America. They come from April to August of frequent low altitudes up to 2,500 meters above sea level before. They live in fields, dry slopes, forest edges and in gardens, especially on clay soils.

Way of life

The diurnal, nimble Imagines also climb trees to hunt for snails, worms, insects and other small creatures. The prey can certainly exceed the size of the beetle. In addition, the animals also eat carrion and fungi. The females lay about 50 eggs 5.5 millimeters long. The resulting hatching larvae hunt in the morning and evening hours on the ground by little critters. You molt three times that pupate in the soil. The next generation of beetles emerges in the fall, but overwinters usually right after the slip under rocks or moss. Gold beetle can reach an age of two years.