Allison and her son Rowan found a lot of these beetles hanging out under rocks on the banks of the Clark Fork River near the Tower St. access. The beetles were described as having “a bit of a metallic glimmer to them, quite striking in the sunlight.” Like many species of ground beetles, Richardson’s False Marsh and Bog Beetles are nocturnal and predators in both the larval and adult stage. After overwintering in the adult stage, they are back out prowling the sandy and gravelly banks of rivers and large streams across western North America.
And an interesting aside—according to Merrill A. Peterson, author of Pacific Northwest Insects, “This was one of the first colonists of the pumice barrens around Mt. St. Helen after [the] 1980 eruption.”
Photos by: Allison De Jong on 4/6/21 in Missoula, MT
