Violet ground beetle
The violet ground beetle is a big black beetle with a shiny purple edge all around it, as if someone painted a glowing line along its sides. It cannot fly, so it runs fast over the forest floor. It comes out at night to go hunting.
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Fun facts
Its wing cases are joined together, so it cannot open them and fly away.
Its feelers are half as long as its whole body.
Because it cannot fly, a few kilometres of open grassland are enough to stop it from reaching another forest.
Jackdaws sometimes feed violet ground beetles to their chicks, and blackbirds eat them too.
Carl Linnaeus, a famous scientist, described this beetle back in 1758.
Most asked questions about Violet ground beetle
?Is the violet ground beetle dangerous?
No. It is harmless to people and only hunts small creatures.
?Can the violet ground beetle fly?
No. Its wing cases are joined together, so it walks and runs instead.
?How big is a violet ground beetle?
It is usually 2 to 3 centimetres long, one of the bigger beetles in European woods.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Carabus violaceus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Carabidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Carabidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Rain beetle
Where the facts come from
- Carabus violaceus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Siga. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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