Beller's ground beetle

Description

Agonum belleri, sometimes called Beller's ground beetle, is a species of ground beetle in the Platyninae subfamily. The species are metallic-black in colour. The species can be found only in Pacific Northwest of North America. A. belleri lives in sphagnum bogs. The species was named after Samuel Beller, an entomologist who was one of the Melville H. Hatch's pupils. Agonum is a large genus of ground beetles in the subfamily Harpalinae, tribe Platynini. They are mid-sized to smallish beetles, typically with dark metallic hues – often reddish or bronze, but sometimes black, green etc. The genus is generally native to the Holarctic and the Mediterranean region; their southern limit in Central Asia and the Himalaya region is less well understood, and they seem to range outward a bit out of their core regions (e.g. into East Africa). They are wet-loving throughout their life cycle; for example, the genus is well represented in Ireland, where they are more plentiful than anywhere else in Europe.