David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu
Congratulations to Chris Burkhart among others for correctly identifying last week’s GTP challenge as a ground beetle, a beneficial predator of slugs and caterpillars. This particular species is actually Chlaenius tricolor, a slug and worm predator. Other common ground beetles in fields along with their feeding habits can be found on the PennState Extension website. You will note that some of these species primarily feed on weed seeds. There are a few others that are sometimes encountered in our fields but are not present on the webpage above, including our largest and most charismatic caterpillar hunters, Calisoma spp.
Ground beetle, Calisoma spp.