Adults are about 5 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Notiophilus substriatus
A beetle with enormous forward-facing eyes and a built-in bristle cage for catching springtails.
About this species
Springtail Stalker
Notiophilus substriatusG. R. Waterhouse, 1833
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Notiophilus substriatus is a small day-active ground beetle of Europe. It hunts tiny springtails on bare soil, moss and leaf litter using unusually acute frontal vision.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Carabidae · Notiophilus
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
EuropeBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Europe
Woodland litter, moss, gardens, banks and open ground.
Diurnal, with peak records from spring into early summer.
Chiefly springtails and other minute invertebrates.
Solitary predator.
What makes this species remarkable?
The eyes occupy a huge fraction of the head and overlap in front, producing a binocular field suited to estimating the position of prey only millimetres away.
Long sensory setae around the mouth form a “setal trap” that helps prevent a springtail from escaping by catapulting itself away at the instant of capture.
Its activity is tied to light: the beetle is a visual hunter and becomes active only when illumination is sufficient for successful stalking.