Black Clock Beetle

The Black Clock Beetle is a common Autumn breeding beetle, black with brick-red colouration on the legs.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Pterostichus madidus
Family: 
Ground Beetles
Family Latin name: 
CARABIDAE
Category: 
Insects other

Species description

Species description

This common Autumn breeding beetle is black with brick-red colouration on the legs.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
The Black Clock Beetle is a common Autumn breeding beetle, black with brick-red colouration on the legs.
Most UK ground beetles, like this Black Clock Beetle, are nocturnal.

Details

Species family information

This is a very numerous worldwide family of active, diurnal and nocturnal predators. Most UK ground beetles are nocturnal, but they can be found by investigating dark, moist areas of the cemetery, such as under logs.

Category information

Insects evolved in the Ordovician from a crustacean ancestral lineage as terrestrial invertebrates with six legs (the Hexapoda). This was the time when terrestrial plants first appeared. In the Devonian some insects developed wings and flight, the first animals to do so. An early flying group was the Odonata from the Carboniferous, the damselflies and dragonflies, which have densely-veined wings and long, ten-segmented bodies. They are day-flying carnivores, with an aquatic larval stage, so are commonly seen flying near water. The carnivorous larvae are called nymphs. Odonata species are short-lived, damselflies surviving for 2-4 weeks, dragonflies for up to 2 months.

Some insect groups in the Cretaceous co-evolved with the flowering plants, and they have had a close association ever since. These groups are the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the Diptera (flies), and the Coleoptera (beetles). The diversity of beetles is astonishing. Of all the known animal species on the planet, one in five is a beetle!