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Sticker of Greater night-stalking tiger beetle
Bug card No. 2038 of 4,939

Greater night-stalking tiger beetle

Omus dejeanii

The greater night-stalking tiger beetle is a dark beetle that cannot fly. Instead it walks through old, damp forests on the west coast of North America. It likes to come out at night and on cloudy days, which is how it got its name.

Lives in
The Pacific coast of North America, from British Columbia almost to northern California, in thick forests
Length
1.5 to 2 cm (0.59 to 0.79 in)
Top speed
about 6 km/h (3.7 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Not dangerous to people. It is best to just watch it walk by.
What does it eat?
Like other tiger beetles, it is a hunter that catches small animals on the forest floor.
For real!Photo of Greater night-stalking tiger beetle
Picture by Yves Bousquet. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Greater night-stalking tiger beetle about 2 cm long (0.79 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.6 secondsmoves 83 times its own body length every second

How big is Greater night-stalking tiger beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is the biggest of the five night-stalking tiger beetles.

2

Scientists think night-stalking tiger beetles are the oldest kind of tiger beetle, the ones most like their ancient relatives.

3

In spring you can sometimes see it walking along forest trails at night or on cloudy days.

4

Shrews and moles are some of the small animals that hunt it at night.

5

Cutting down old forests and wildfires take away its home.

you asked

Most asked questions about Greater night-stalking tiger beetle

?Can the greater night-stalking tiger beetle fly?

No. It cannot fly, so it walks everywhere on the forest floor.

?How big is the greater night-stalking tiger beetle?

About 15 to 20 millimetres long, the biggest of its group.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Omus dejeanii
Group
Beetles
Family
Cicindelidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Cicindelidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Omus dejeani (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 Yves Bousquet. 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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More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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