Beach Tiger Beetle

About the Beach Tiger Beetle

The Beach Tiger Beetle is a small, fast, pale predator of the open sand - ghostly white to sandy tan with thin dark markings, long legs, and oversized jaws. The pale color is camouflage on bare beach, and a beetle standing still effectively disappears; most people only notice the quick, low dash when one sprints ahead of a walker at the surf line.

Tiger beetles are among the fastest runners in the insect world for their size, chasing down sand fleas and small insects in short bursts, then stopping dead to relocate their prey by sight. When pressed they fly - a short, low, fast hop down the beach that makes them famously difficult to approach, and a real test of a photographer's patience.

On the Texas coast, beach tiger beetles patrol the zone between the dunes and the wet sand from spring through fall. Their dependence on undisturbed open beach makes this group sensitive to heavy vehicle and foot traffic, and several related species have declined badly elsewhere in the country.