Calosoma inquisitor
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
Calosoma inquisitor (the lesser searcher beetle or caterpillar-hunter) is a species of ground beetle. The species is found in northern Africa, Europe (northward to southern Scandinavia) and East to Asia Minor, Iran and the Caucasus, with isolated populations in eastern Siberia and Japan (although these are also treated as a separate species Calosoma cyanescens by some authors).
The imagines are predatory on various insects and their larvae, especially, feed on Lepidoptera larvae. They can fly well and are found not only on the ground, but also in bushes and on trees. In case of danger the beetle can fall and then threaten by lifting up the front body and spreading the mandibles. The females lay about 50 eggs. The hatching larvae are also predatory and develop very quickly. They're in the ground. The beetles emerge in June, but still linger in a diapause until next spring in the ground. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
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More parks will be added in future updates.
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Searcher Beetle sighting in Prague on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 406th most-seen of the 724 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Searcher Beetle in Prague on a given day, against under 5% in June to April, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Lesser Searcher Beetle sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 6
Of the 6 cities where we can rate Lesser Searcher Beetle sightings, Prague ranks 6th at under 5%. The best odds are in Kharkiv (Ukraine, about 10%), Kyiv (Ukraine, about 10%) and Budapest (Hungary, about 10%).
Same family: Carabidae
The closest relatives of the Lesser Searcher Beetle that you can see in Prague (family Carabidae, Ground Beetles) are Blue Ground Beetle (about 10%), Bronze Ground Beetle (about 10%) and Leather Beetle (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Lesser Searcher Beetle is recorded against all the insects logged in Prague (11 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
