Over the past 150 years, rapid growth in land use, industry and urban development has resulted in dramatic changes which pose significant threats for many organisms. Therefore, improving our knowledge about biodiversity, learning where species live and how to protect them, is one of the greatest challenges of this century.

As a major element of the world's terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity, the ground beetles play an important role in maintaining the health of the Earth's biosphere. For example, they are the predominant invertebrates in certain types of habitats such as river sides and agricultural land. Many carnivorous members of this insect family are "farmer's best friends' in the natural control of pests, but limited data on these species undermine the ability to make progress in sustainable land use. Many species are vulnerable or threatened by factors including dramatic habitat loss, but lack of information hinders nations wishing to fulfil their obligations under the Convention of Biological Diversity. For example, governments of the world have set aside nature reserves and wildlife refuges but, in most cases, comprehensive inventories of the species that occur in those areas are lacking, and the value of these protected areas in serving as conservation centers remains unknown.

Informations about ground beetles are stored in thousands of publications distributed over a wide range of periodicals, journals or books, and written in many languages. The difficulties to track such information is a major impediment not only to scientific progress but also to the ability of researchers to contribute effectively to urgent conservation efforts. CarabCat seeks to improve access to the fragmented bibliographical data and other information relating to each scientific name.

How to use CarabCat: Search is optimized on standard names of taxa as listed in Nomina Carabidarum. The geographic search is optimized on simple country codes (for a list of country codes and other instructions click here). Search results are generated in tables displaying the bibliographic references (by authors' name and year as listed in Bibliographia Carabidarum); the page(s); precisely the name by which the taxon has been mentioned in the reference; and coded information of each work's geographic and thematic content. We will also make an attempt to track mistaken applications of names.
Through 2003, the focus of CarabCat will be on the Afrotropical fauna, but more content will continue to be added.

Faunistic work is tremendously labor-intensive, specifically for mapping the species distributions across a larger scale. These difficulties in acquiring important data are troublesome for researchers in the 'developed' world, but are especially daunting in many tropical regions where the highest number of species is living.
The purpose of CarabMap is to reduce such impediments by an interactive database which will create dynamic online grid maps and data tables generated at the moment of search. This means that it is possible to retrieve the metadata, e.g., the collection data and attributes of the specimen(s) associated with each point on the map.

How to use CarabMap: Search is optimized on standard names of taxa as listed in Nomina Carabidarum and grid-fields, i.e., the raster fields limited by full degrees of latitude and longitude (for details click here). Search results can be viewed (and downloaded) as maps and/or data tables. Details displayed in the data tables include the country's name, the year of the last record, and the museums or private collections holding the specimen(s) or, - if no specimens are known, the bibliographic reference to the record.
As a general policy in our data management, we will share our full original datasets (i.e., data 'behind' the online information) with the holders of the specimen(s) associated with the map data. We hope that this will stimulate the sharing of biodiversity data and facilitate access to the complete metadata. It is our intent to invite museums and private collectors for future collaboration in the progress of enhancing CarabMap, - e.g., data collected from literature sources could be verified and additional unidentified specimens could be identified.
Through 2003, the focus of CarabMap will be the Afrotropical region. Later we plan to add maps for other faunas, and the database will remain in a constant state of evolution.

This section is still under construction. Here you will find links to other online resources of information about ground beetles. Please contact us if you like to be included.

Among other equally diverse groups of insects, the Carabidae are by far the best known, - both in terms of taxonomy and ecology. Ground beetles are mostly predaceous insects distributed over nearly the entire range of terrestrial habitats, - from desert to evergreen rain forest, from tropical lowland to altitudes of more than 5000 m, from well above the arctic circle in Greenland to subantarctic Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia and Kerguelen islands. In most of these habitats, ground beetles are present not only by single species populations, but in characteristic communities. Carabid fossils are known from early Jurassic (PONOMARENKO 1977), so the group might have emerged in the beginning of the Jurassic or the end of the Triassic.

The publication of the 10th edition of 'Systema Naturae' by LINNAEUS in 1758 is the birth date of scientific nomenclature in zoology and carabidology, so the second edition of Nomina Carabidarum documents nearly a quarter millennium of scientific research on ground beetles. It also reflects the joy and fascination of generations of enthusiastic collectors and amateur carabidologists, whose contributions to our present knowledge about ground beetles were substantial and should never be underestimated. Despite rapidly growing interest in ground beetles over the past 64 years, no checklist or catalogue with a worldwide scope has been published since JUNK & SCHENKLING's volumes in the Coleopterorum Catalogus series. In that catalogue the Carabidae were covered in Pars 86 (Cicindelinae) compiled by Walter HORN (1926) and Partes 91, 92, 97, 98, 104, 112, 115, 121, 124, 126, 127 (remaining subfamilies) by Ernö CSIKI (1927-1933). Paussinae and Rhysodinae, which were later incorporated in the Carabidae, were separately catalogued by JANSSENS (1953) and HINCKS (1950). The six decades since the publication of the last general catalogues have witnessed a lot of significant taxonomic changes among ground beetles, and notably during the past two decades, a number of regional checklists and catalogues have been published. Some of the most important are: BOUSQUET & LAROCHELLE 1993 (nearctic region), MOORE & al. 1987 (Australia), BURAKOWSKI & al. 1973, 1974 (Poland), VIGNA TAGLIANTI 1993 (Italy), ZABALLOS & JEANNE 1994 (Spain, Portugal), TRAUTNER; MÜLLER- MOTZFELD & BRÄUNICKE 1997 (Germany), KRYZHANOVSKIJ & al. 1995 (Russia and adjacent territories). WIESNER (1992) has compiled a very useful worldwide catalogue including literature citations of tiger beetles (Subfam. Cicindelinae, classified as a separate family by WIESNER and many 'tiger' specialists). To this day, these publications are indispensable tools on the desks of modern carabidologists. However, progress in the study of carabids, the pressing need for more 'applied Carabidology' including computer work and the amount of nomenclatural instability, particularly in the nomenclature of western palearctic ground beetles are such that I believe it is necessary to attempt an up-to-date comprehensive attempt on a global basis.

World-wide species richness, and a high standard of knowledge about them are qualities that make the carabid beetles 'key-organisms' for the understanding of ecosystems and ideal indicators in various fields of basic research and applied sciences. To an increasing number of carabidologists, one of the most important roles of ground beetle research is in ecological and environmental studies (e.g., STORK 1990). Particularly in the northwestern palearctic and the northern nearctic region, today's chances of 'applied carabidology' can build upon the immense pioneer work accomplished by researchers like Carl H. LINDROTH (e.g., 1949, 1961-1969), Hans-Ulrich THIELE (e.g., 1977), Peter J. DEN BOER (e.g., 1977), and many others. The natural history, habitat requirements and dispersal powers are known for many species of these intensively studied faunas, and standardized field methods are available. Meetings of European Carabidologists with emphasis on the ecology and biology of ground beetles were held at regular intervals since 1963 (e.g., STORK 1990, NIEMELÄ 1996). Modern researchers in ecology and nature conservation as well as environmental planners use carabid beetles, e.g. in

• site assessment studies in the sense of biodiversity values,

• impact studies with respect to land use factors,

• planning and effect control of management programmes for protected areas.

Naturally, knowledge is not equally distributed over all taxonomic groups of carabids and all regions. Progress in the taxonomy and ecology of ground beetles is particularly needed in tropical areas where the most dramatic loss of biodiversity takes place, and where first stage taxonomy has to cope with the pace of extinction rates. In some areas at least, the compilation of existing data, now scattered here and there in a multitude of rare periodicals and scientific collections, can produce provisional checklists and regional inventories (e.g., ERWIN & SIMS 1984, MOORE 1987, ERWIN 1991, PEARSON & HUBER 1995) upon which significant studies of ecology and conservation can be conducted. These will, for example, allow references to be traced that show changes in biodiversity resulting from natural forces and human interaction with the environment. It is essential in particular for developing nations to have a workforce of researchers who know their country's biological wealth and its scientific basis well.