Invertebrates
Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle
Cicindela sexguttata · also called six-spotted tiger beetles
Along a sunny forest trail, a metallic green six-spotted tiger beetle bursts into a short, blindingly fast sprint after a passing ant, then stops abruptly mid-chase, not because it has lost interest, but because its own eyes genuinely cannot keep up with how fast it just moved.
Overview
The six-spotted tiger beetle, Cicindela sexguttata, is a brilliantly coloured predatory beetle native to forested habitat across a broad range of the eastern United States. Its striking metallic green body, extraordinary running speed relative to body size, and unusual stop-and-start hunting pattern make it one of the more physically remarkable predatory insects found along woodland trails.
Too fast for its own eyes
Few animals illustrate a genuine biological trade-off as clearly as the six-spotted tiger beetle, whose sprinting speed is so extreme relative to its size that it temporarily outruns its own ability to see where it is going.
Status
Least Concern — widespread and common across suitable forested habitat throughout the eastern United States.
Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle: common questions
Why does the six-spotted tiger beetle stop and start while chasing prey?
This species can run so fast relative to its own body size that its eyes cannot process enough visual information to track a moving target while sprinting at full speed, so it periodically pauses in short bursts to visually relocate its prey before resuming the chase, a stop-and-start hunting pattern directly caused by its own extreme speed.
How can you identify a six-spotted tiger beetle?
Look for a brilliant metallic green body marked with several small white spots, a striking combination visible even from a distance in bright sunlight, along with the beetle's habit of darting along sunny forest paths and clearings rather than staying hidden in vegetation.
What does the six-spotted tiger beetle eat?
This species hunts ants, caterpillars, spiders, and other small invertebrates, chasing them down at high speed and seizing them with large, curved, sickle-shaped mandibles well suited to gripping and subduing active prey.
Where can you find a six-spotted tiger beetle?
This species is commonly found along sunny, open forest paths, trails, and clearings across a broad range of the eastern United States, generally hunting on bare or sparsely vegetated ground rather than deep within dense forest cover.