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Life Along a
Prairie River

Exploring the ecology of the wide and sandy rivers of the Great Plains

This attractive and brightly colored insect has been called the butterfly of the beetle world. However, they are more ferocious than this description implies. Their voracious appetite for other insects has earned them the name “tiger” beetle. These metallic colored beetles are 11-13 mm long with bulging eyes and long green legs.

Festive Tiger Beetles reproduce in the spring. The larvae live under the sand in burrows that can be up to 2 feet deep. At the top of the burrow, the larvae catch prey in their powerful jaws, holding on to sides of the burrow with special hooks on their abdomen. The beetle then drags its prey to the bottom of the burrow to eat. The larvae eat ants, spiders, and other small crawling invertebrates it can grab near the entrance of the burrow. Adult tiger beetles are fast runners and fliers. Their speed enables them to catch both crawling and flying prey which they grasp their sickle-shaped jaws.

Their range extends through the central and eastern regions of the U.S. and in southeastern and south-central Canada. They can be found in a variety of bare, open habitats, including river sandbars, ocean beaches, mud-flats, dunes, and rocky outcrops.

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