Carabus auronitens

Gold Shiny beetle ( Carabus auronitens )

The Gold Shiny beetle ( Carabus auronitens ) is a beetle of the family of ground beetles ( Carabidae ).

Features

The beetles are 18 to 32 millimeters long. Your elytra and head are golden red, gold green or rarely blue shining, narrow at the base of pronotum is reddish, coppery colored. The coloring of the animals is highly variable. The elytra each bear three strong, dark longitudinal ribs between the surface is granular. The legs are black, only the legs ( femurs ) are colored red. The antennae are black, only the first term is red. From similar gold beetle ( Carabus auratus), the gold shiny beetles differs mainly by the longitudinal ribs, which are colored green golden in similar style. In this way, the first four antennal segments are red.

Similar Species

• Gold beetle ( Carabus auratus)

Occurrence

The animals are found in Central, Eastern and Western Europe. You are missing south of the Pyrenees in northern Europe and in the West. They live in cold and humid deciduous and mixed forests, at high altitudes on unforested areas. They are found under loose bark, in dead wood and moss, especially in the mountains and foothills, maximum up to an altitude of about 2,500 meters. In Western Europe, but they are also found in the plane. They come forth between May and September.

Way of life

The primarily nocturnal imagos feed on prey on small animals, such as Snails, worms and insects. You climb it on trees up to about six meters in height. The larvae pupate after three skins. From the late summer or early autumn slips from the pupae, the next generation of beetles. These animals overwinter under bark or dead wood between crevices or in tree stumps and are already active early next year.