Green Tiger Beetle

• It can run at up to 60 cm a second, an exceptional speed for its size.
• Its larvae live in vertical burrows up to 25 cm deep.
• Its larvae are parasitised by the solitary wasp Methoca ichneumonoides.
• It is one of the fastest land animals relative to its size: it runs at about 60 centimetres per second, equivalent to around 120 times its own body length every second.
• And that speed carries an extraordinary price: it runs so fast that it goes blind. Its eyes cannot gather enough photons to form an image at that speed, so it stops, locates the prey again and sets off once more. Its pursuit is a series of sprints and halts.
• To avoid crashing while blind it uses its antennae, which it holds stretched out in front, detecting obstacles by touch.
• The larva is completely different: it lives in a vertical burrow in the sand, its head acting as a plug at the mouth of the tunnel, and seizes whatever passes overhead.
• Its metallic green is structural colour, like that of the rose chafer.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Open ground with sandy or chalky soil on heaths, dunes and paths across much of Eurasia

Birth weight

Eggs laid singly in burrows dug into sandy soil

Size at birth

A larva 9-14 mm long depending on the instar, living in a vertical burrow up to 25 cm deep

Sexual maturity

Reached after complete metamorphosis (no fixed age applies)

Gestation / incubation

A larval stage of roughly 71-75 days across 3 instars, plus a pupal stage of unspecified length

Litter / clutch size

Eggs laid singly; no precise figure found for the number

Sources consulted: Entomologist.net; Buglife Bug Directory; iNaturalist; Beetlesbug.com; Purdue University Vegetable Crops Hotline; Wikipedia (Cicindela campestris); Beetle Identifications