Ant-nest Beetle
Ventral
Green Ground Beetle
S2, dorsal
| Ant-nest Beetle Ventral | | Green Ground Beetle S2, dorsal | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Beetles (Coleoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Ground Beetle (Carabidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Green Ground Beetle (Carenum elegans) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S1, dorsal🔎 | ||||
Thank you Mark Hura for identifying this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Riverland and elsewhere S1 was ~18mm & S2 ~22mm. S9 years later, ~21mm long. We often find the colourful, metallic ground beeltes in pairs; with one larger than the other. We guess the smaller is the male & larger the female. There are no external visual clues as to any difference apart from size that we can detect. While they look ferocious we found they weren't at all aggressive. We wouldn't recommend people pick them up to test the theory; if they did bite we imagine it'd draw blood and be very painful. We thought this was C. habitans. Mark said "Common and widespread species in riverland area of SA, NSW and Vic. Differs from C. habitans in more rounded prothorax, and elytra being more rounded on sides (habitans is almost parallel) and tapered much more evenly to the shoulders. Legs (particularly hind tibiae) much more slender in elegans than habitans." | |||||
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