Moorland ground beetle
Carabus arvensis

The moorland ground beetle is a big, shiny beetle that can be bronze or green. Its back is covered in tiny bumps, like the skin of an orange. It runs around on the ground looking for small animals to eat.
Lives in
Europe and across Asia to Siberia and Japan, on moors, bogs and in dry woods
Length
1.6 to 2 cm (0.63 to 0.79 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It may nip a little if you squeeze it, so it is best to just watch it run.
What does it eat?
Like other big ground beetles, it hunts small creatures on the ground, such as insects.

How big is it?
How long is it?
๐as long as 3 grains of rice in a row๐ฝ๏ธcould run across a dinner table in 2.8 seconds
How big is Moorland ground beetle compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Moorland ground beetle about 1.3 km/h (0.81 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
It lives as far north as the Arctic Circle.
2
In western Europe it lives on mountain moors and wet bogs, but further east it prefers dry woods.
3
It is found all the way from Europe to the islands of Sakhalin and Japan.
you asked
Most asked questions about Moorland ground beetle
?How big is the moorland ground beetle?
About 16 to 20 millimetres long, about as long as your fingertip.
?Is the moorland ground beetle dangerous?
No. It hunts small creatures, but it is harmless to people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Carabus arvensis
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Carabidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Carabidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Carabus arvensis (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 Udo Schmidt from Deutschland. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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