Relicts from Glacial Times: The Ground Beetle Eschscholtz, 1823 (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the Austrian Alps.

The last ice age considerably influenced distribution patterns of extant species of plants and animals, with some of them now inhabiting disjunct areas in the subarctic/arctic and alpine regions. This arctic-alpine distribution is characteristic for many cold-adapted species with a limited dispersal ability and can be found in many invertebrate taxa, including ground beetles. The ground beetle Eschscholtz, 1823 of the subgenus was previously known to have a holarctic-circumpolar distribution, in Europe reaching its southern borders in Wales and southern Scandinavia.