The purple rimmed carabus beetle

While visiting my son in Alberta, I had the opportunity to hunt around for "critters." I always expect to find something exciting but often my hopes go unfullfilled. I had decided to look for salamanders native to Alberta. These belong to the mole salamander family and include tiger, long toed, and blotched salamanders. I turned over every loose board, rotten log, and fallen tree that I could find. Even large stones and cement blocks were worthy of peering under; the search came to no avail. However I did come upon a pair of really large beetles.

Large black beetles that you find underneath earthy substrate are often ground beetles but may in fact be darkling beetles. Generally ground beetles have a shiny sheen to their exoskeleton, especially the back wing covers (elytra) and top of the thorax (pronotum). Darkling beetles tend to be a flat black. To understand the difference, consider black paint that is either glossy or satin. If you can picture that then you have the idea. If you look at the image you can see the sheen caused from the reflecting light. This was a ground beetle.

I brought it back to my RV where I photographed it (I have learned that my wife does not want to see my wonderful acquisitions) and then returned it to the wild. Although I could see the metallic edges around the beetle, it wasn't until I got a few shots off that its intensity really emerged. The beautiful blue and purple silvery marks absolutely gleemed in the images. The insect books I have led me to believe that I had found a carabid beetle. Tying that information along with a description and the word "Alberta" took me to discover that I had in my possession a purple rimmed carabus ground beetle. That was exciting (OK, I have no life).

I discovered that this particular ground beetle comes from Europe. They tend to be present in cities and are unusual finds in the countryside, which is where I found mine. Most ground beetles are predators and activey hunt creatures which we mostly consider pests. If you look at the mouthparts of the beetle in my photo you will notice how formidable its jaws are. They rarely bite; I had no problem holding them in my hand, although I kept a fist around them because they prefer the dark and are incredibly fast. Another reason why my wife would not care to see them (not only that, she wouldn't hold my hand for a month if she saw me clutching one). Their young are equally predaceous and can be found in loose surface soils.

There are many thousands of ground beetle species here in North America, and with the addition of European beetle immagrants I think I was fortunate to identify it. Unlucky in that my salamander hunt turned up empty, but lucky in finding and identifying what I did. A silver lining in a cloud. A purple and blue silver lining.

Thanks for reading. www.ericspix.com Eric Svendsen