113 Records

Status

Cicindela scutellaris is a widespread, stocky tiger beetle characteristic of deep, well-drained sandy habitats, including pine barrens, sandy openings and trails, sparsely-used sandy roads, or powerline rights-of way. It is extremely variable by region, with a number of named forms across portions of its extensive range. In Maryland, the beetles present are considered to be rugifrons, which occurs from coastal North Carolina and Virginia northeast through southern New England. This is the only subspecies of scutellaris with two color morphs, a black morph (form "modesta") and a greenish-blue morph. The relative abundance of these morphs varies by locality (Pearson et al. 2015). Knisley found that black morphs predominate northeast of an imaginary line from northern Somerset to Ann Arundel County (Knisley & Schultz, 1997). Coastal populations in some portions of the range of rugifrons (probably the NJ pine barrens) appear to be overwhelmingly green morphs, while black morphs are more numerous farther from the immediate coast (Pearson et al., 2015). It is ranked S3 (watch list).