Leather beetle
Carabus coriaceus
Name means: “leathery”
The leather beetle is a big black ground beetle whose back looks like wrinkled leather. It runs fast on long legs. It lives in forests all over Europe, Estonia too.
Lives in
Europe, in leafy and mixed forests
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless if you leave it alone. It may nip if you grab it, so just watch it run.
What does it eat?
Like other big ground beetles, it hunts small animals on the forest floor, like snails and worms.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Leather beetle about 1.2 km/h (0.75 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its name means leathery, because its wing covers look like leather.
2
In the hottest and driest part of summer it takes a long rest, a bit like sleeping through the heat.
3
It lives mostly in forests with leafy trees.
you asked
Most asked questions about Leather beetle
?Is the leather beetle dangerous?
No. It is harmless if you just watch it.
?Does the leather beetle live in Estonia?
Yes. It lives in forests across Europe, including Estonia.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Carabus coriaceus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Carabidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Carabidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Carabus coriaceus (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 Holger Gröschl. CC BY-SA 2.0 de, 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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