Adephaga

Peck, Stewart B., 2009, The beetles of Barbados, West Indies (Insecta: Coleoptera): diversity, distribution and faunal structure, Insecta Mundi 2009 (73), pp. 1-51 : 10

Suborder Adephaga

10. Family Carabidae, The ground beetles

Subfamily Carabinae

Tribe Carabini

Calosoma (Castridia) alternans (Fabricius) 1792: 146 ( Carabus ); Blackwelder 1944 -1957: 20; Gidaspow 1963: 298; apparently overlooked in Erwin and Sims 1984: 423; Bennett and Alam 1985: 20. Distribution. Widespread Antilles and South America . Barbados (BMAC), Barbuda, Dominica, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Barthelemy, St. Croix, St. Vincent. Mexico to Colombia and Trinidad, northern Brazil (nominate subspecies) and S. a. granulatus Perty throughout most of Brazil, to Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Greater Antilles records are in error ( Gidaspow 1963: 300). Bionomics. Predaceous on Lepidoptera larvae and pupae of Anomis spp. , Spodoptera spp ., Diatraea saccharalis , Plutella xylostella, Trichoplusia ni, Pseudoplusia includens, Anticarsia gemmatalis, etc. Adults often appear in numbers at lights at the start of the rainy season.

Subfamily Cicindelinae

The Barbados report of Megacephala sobrina Dejean 1831: 202 ( Ivie 1983: 194; Bennett and Alam 1985: 19) cannot be confirmed and is here considered to be an error. The species is not known from elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles. It is reported to occur on the islands of Anegada, Antigua, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, St. Barthelemy, St. Croix, St. John, St. Martin, St. Thomas and from Mexico through Panama to Curacao, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina ( Blackwelder 1944 -1957: 13; Wagenaar Hummelinck 1955: 108; Ivie 1983: 194; Balazuc and Chalumeau 1978: 19-20; Freitag 1992: 154).