Dark sailor beetle
It stays active in near freezing weather and can be seen crawling across snow in winter, unusually cold tolerant for a soft bodied beetle.
| Where | Meadows, hedgerows, and forest edges |
|---|---|
| Size | 10 to 15 mm long |
| When | May to June |
This soldier beetle is entirely black except for red or orange patches on parts of the head and thorax, with a flattened, elongated body, long feathery antennae, and long legs. Adults reach 10 to 15 mm in length.
It hunts small insects and other invertebrates in bushes, hedgerows, and forest edges, preferring the higher humidity of meadows over open fields, and tolerates cold well enough to be active into early spring.
Traits
Habitat
Grassland
Colour
Black, Orange
Active
Day
To people
Harmless to people.
Activity through the year
Often confused with
The sailor beetle has partly red legs and a black heart shaped mark on its orange pronotum, while the dark sailor beetle has entirely black legs and a similar overall size of 9 to 15 mm.
Questions
Is the Dark sailor beetle dangerous to people?
Harmless to people.
When can you see the Dark sailor beetle?
The Dark sailor beetle can be seen from May to June, by day.
Plate retouched from a photo by Udo Schmidt from Deutschland, CC BY‑SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons Licence
The plate on this page is shared under the same licence as its source, CC BY-SA.
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Beetles›Soldier beetles›Cantharis
Last updated 2026-09-26. Every entry is checked against published sources.