Charles, it does look like the same beetle as in your photo, and seems to match the drawing and description in Dillon and Dillon for Lebia viridis. Your photo is not shadowy like mine and shows the body form better.

Eric, to answer your question, it does appear to me that they elytra are truncated, even more so than the drawing of Lebia viridis in Dillon and Dillon. But that area of the photo is pretty dark. In Charles' picture the abdomen itself is visible and is sort of squared off. The Dillon and Dillon drawing doesn't really show that, but maybe it varies with the beetle's "posture"?

And Robin, failing to see any other likely matches, I must conclude I overestimated the size. Lebia viridis is listed as 4.5 to 5.5 mm, and as you note other kin are small too. I guess it is like the fish that got away, you imagine it bigger than it was. It looks big in the picture!

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

It has been far too long, alas. I am quite sure it was neither especially large nor especially small. My rough guess would be 15-19 mm or so.

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

I browsed through the thumbnails of Ground Beetles of Canada and saw none that were really good candidates. The tribe Lebiini seemed the most similar in body shape but most of them are under 10 mm. Plochionus (Menidius) had the closest matching pronotum but it's only 7 mm and the color is all wrong.

Yes this is a Lebiini. The species is Calleida viridipennis.

Thanks, Frank. I'm moving the photo to the newly created Calleida viridipennis page.

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

I searched the web for images of C. viridipennis but couldn't find any, and I see you've created a blank Guide page. What are the field marks that distinguish this species from other similar ones? Do you have any print references for this species? It would help to add these kinds of info to the Guide page for future reference.

I don't know of a good key and actually this beetle was a major pain to figure out. I collected it in high school and could not believe at the time that such a beautiful beetle (in real life they are just incredible, very shiny forest green with coppery-red elytral margins) was not in any guide books. Over the years I had a small series of them from Maryland and West Virginia and eventually figured it out by taking them to the Smithsonian and going through the carabid drawers. The truncate elytral tips mark it as a Lebiini. Other clues to go on are the metallic green color and elongate form. Calleida punctata has a yellow pronotum and is more likely to be swept from moist vegetation, especially along streams. Viridipennis is usually found at light or under bark in woods. The Carabids of Plummers Island, Maryland web site by Terry Irwin gives a good ecological description of viridipennis but be careful - the beetle pictured next to the text is actually Calleida punctata! I'll add another picture of viridipennis here.

I see that Patrick has already included a number of details on the Guide page for this species; I only added the examples in the See Also section, describing how some similar beetles differ from this one.