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Sticker of Red-collared harp ground beetle
Bug card No. 3561 of 4,939

Red-collared harp ground beetle

Calathus ruficollis

The red-collared harp ground beetle is a ground beetle from the west coast of North America. It cannot fly, so it runs along the ground instead. It comes out at night to hunt.

Lives in
Western North America, from California up to British Columbia, and also Hawaii
Top speed
about 1.2 km/h (0.75 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is a small beetle that hunts other little animals, not people.
What does it eat?
It is a hunter that catches other small animals on the ground at night.
For real!Photo of Red-collared harp ground beetle
Picture by Chloe and Trevor Van Loon. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has no working wings for flying, so it gets everywhere on its six legs.

2

Scientists know four subspecies. One of them lives all the way from British Columbia in Canada to northern California.

3

People accidentally brought one kind of it to Hawaii.

you asked

Most asked questions about Red-collared harp ground beetle

?Can the red-collared harp ground beetle fly?

No. It cannot fly, so it runs on the ground.

?Where does the red-collared harp ground beetle live?

In western North America, from British Columbia down to Baja California and Arizona. It was also brought to Hawaii.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Calathus ruficollis
Named by
Dejean, 1828
Group
Beetles
Family
Carabidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Carabidae
Lives on
North America, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Calathus ruficollis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Chloe and Trevor Van Loon. CC BY 4.0, 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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