Hi. I am a new user who would like to know if carabidae beetles eat worms. I have a small aquaponics facility and I would like to eliminate caterpillars and slugs but they don’t eat the worms. Thank you
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I moved your post to Nature Talk since it’s not directly related to iNaturalist.
That is a hard question to answer, as the family of Ground beetles is rather varied. From my understanding, most of them are generalist predators and are not super picky, but will chose to eat some foods over others given the option. Some are specialists and only eat snails or other really specific things. Really, it will depend on which specific species of carabid you are talking about.
I found this article, which might help answer a little bit of your question: https://academic.oup.com/ee/article/6/1/9/2395725
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You could get some firefly larvae. They eat worms, or at least some species do. And slugs, of course.
Generally they do, but for you need to do a research to choose which species you’d need.
Ok. I’m sorry.
Thanks
Hi. Thank you all and sorry for my English. I better use a translator … I live in Spain and tried to buy firefly larvae but I can’t find it. As for what kind of carabidae I don’t know. I only know that in my beds of expanded clay there are worms that eat dead leaves and roots and help me clean, so I want to take care of them. and kill the millions of slugs I have …
With slugs it should be easier: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/20-ways-control-slugs-permaculture-garden-or-allotment
Thanks a lot. A very good page with a lot of ideas.
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