Dark sailor beetle
Cantharis fusca
The dark sailor beetle is a long, flat beetle with a soft body. It is black all over, except for some red or orange on its head and the front of its body. It has long feelers and long legs.
Lives in
Large parts of Europe, in bushes, forest edges and meadows
Length
1 to 1.5 cm (0.39 to 0.59 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not sting.
What does it eat?
It hunts small insects. Its larvae hunt small insects too.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a row🍽️could run across a dinner table in 7.2 seconds
How big is Dark sailor beetle compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Dark sailor beetle about 0.5 km/h (0.31 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its larvae are covered in black hairs.
2
The larvae are so tough against the cold that they can be seen crawling on snow in winter.
3
Its wing covers are soft and bendy, not hard like most beetles'.
you asked
Most asked questions about Dark sailor beetle
?Is the dark sailor beetle dangerous?
No. It is harmless to people and even helps by eating small insects.
?What are the hairy black larvae crawling on the snow?
They can be larvae of the dark sailor beetle, which are very good at handling the cold.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cantharis fusca
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Cantharidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Cantharidae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Dark soldier beetle
Where the facts come from
- Cantharis fusca (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 Darius Baužys. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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