Ground beetle

Calosoma peregrinator · Order: Coleoptera · Family: Carabidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Ground beetle
Photo: Robert Webster, CC BY-SA

Calosoma peregrinator is a ground beetle called the traveling caterpillar hunter. It lives in grasslands and pastures of Mexico and the southern United States, where adults hunt caterpillars and overwinter underground.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

Calosoma peregrinator is a ground beetle called the traveling caterpillar hunter.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

It lives in grasslands and pastures of Mexico and the southern United States.

Source: Wikipedia

What it eats

Adult beetles hunt and eat caterpillars.

Source: Wikipedia

Life cycle

Adults overwinter in underground cavities before emerging to feed on caterpillars.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it comes from

Its range includes Mexico and the southern United States.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 15 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, California, Kansas, Utah, Iowa.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: native in North America. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Questions people ask

What do Calosoma peregrinator beetles eat?

Adults prey on caterpillars.

Source: Wikipedia

Where can I find Calosoma peregrinator?

They are found in grasslands and pastures of Mexico and the southern United States.

Source: Wikipedia

Same family (Carabidae)

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calosoma_peregrinator

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-24 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-24.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.