Strange beetle
Location: North Syria
May 2, 2011 6:50 pm
I saw this bug in march-3-2011 at the garden of my home in Aleppo/Syria at 3:30pm
It was crawling on a quince tree .
Can you help me identify it?
Thanks!
Signature: Tamim Houary
Signature: Aleppo
Dear Tamim,
Your beetle is a Ground Beetle in the family Carabidae, and we believe it is most likely one of the Caterpillar Hunters in the genus Calosoma. We actually believe this may be the Caterpillar Searcher or Forest Caterpillar Hunter, Calosoma sycophanta, a species that was introduced from Europe to North America to help control the Gypsy Moth according to BugGuide. According to the Carabidae of the World website, the natural range of the species includes Syria. Here are some notes from the Calosoma of the World website: “Notes: Winged diurnal but in some case can be attracted to light at night. It is inhabitant of both coniferous and decidous forests. Adults and larvae are excellent climbers and feed on Lymantridae and Thaumatopoeidae (Thaumatopoea pityocampa Denis & Schiffermuller, Lophirus pini Linné, Thaumetopoea processionea Linné, Lymantria dispar L., Euproctis chrysorrhoea Linné) and other caterpillars infesting trees of genera Pinus, Quercus and Fagus. Adults hunt trunks and treetops during the day and go down to the ground at around sunset and then hide in leaf litter at the foot of the trees.
Captures of active individuals have been noted from April to August. It is not rare to find specimens overwintering in small cavities in the ground.
Calosoma sycophanta is an handsome beetle that has attracted, since the first steps of entomology, the interest of entomologists. It is one of the few Carabidae represented in the volume of Aldovrandi (De Animalibus Insectis Libri septem cum singulorum Iconibus ad vivum expressis 1638: 450, fig. 6) under the name of Scarabaeus viridis. Later Reamour (Memoires pour servir a l’histoire des Insectes, vol. II, 1736: 455 and plate 37 fig. 18) has given an account of its way of life. Subsequently there have been numerous illustrations in books of this beautiful species. It can still be interesting to recall that, because of its rarity in the British Isles, Donovan (The Natural History Of British Insects, vol. XIV, 1810: pl.477) has drawn in its place the Calosoma (Calodrepa) scrutator. This error has been then corrected by Curtis (British Entomology, 1823-1840: pl.330).”
