Carabus hispanus is, on the contrary to what it’s name suggests, a French endemic ground beetle. It’s distribution is located in the Central South of France, where it occurs in the Cévennes, the Drome, and the Landes. The ground beetle is a typical forest species, which can be locally common on north exposed slopes. It feeds like most of it’s congeners on snails, earthworms,  and various kinds of fruit. Then comes the question, why on earth do you call it the holy grail? Simply because of it’s mindblowing appearance. It is one of the very large ‘carabus’ beetles, the females can measure up to almost 40 mm and it has an exceptional combination of flashy colours. But enough reading, just take a look at the pictures.

I went searching for the Carabus hispanus in the Cévennes and the Montagne Noire. In the first week of april, it was still exceptionally cold in the Cévennes and I didn’t manage to find any specimen. So I decided to give the Montagne Noire a try, which is located a little more to the south west and is known to be exceptionally rich in ground beetle species. On the first day I managed to find a superb ground beetle, the Carabus splendens, as well as the very intense coloured ‘festivus’ subspecies of the Carabus auronitens. Here are some sample images, of both species.

The second day I finally found in a steep northern slope forest dominated by Chestnuttrees, a very large female ‘hispanus’. I also made an attempt to take some pictures of some of the ground beetles in their surrounding landscape, here are some results.

More pictures can be found in the stock of my website.