Chinese tiger beetle
Amazing fact
The tiger beetle repeatedly flies ahead and lands when a person approaches.
TAKAO 599 MUSEUM
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An illustration based on the real animal.
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The tiger beetle repeatedly flies ahead and lands when a person approaches.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Chinese tiger beetle
- Scientific name
- Cicindela chinensis
- Japanese name
- ハンミョウ
- Group
- Insects
- Class
- Insecta
- Order
- Coleoptera
- Family
- Carabidae
- Genus
- Cicindela
Where the name “Chinese tiger beetle” comes from
Its Japanese name comes from the way its quick hunting resembles a cat.
TAKAO 599 MUSEUMA beetle with large, well-developed jaws. Both the larvae and the adults are meat-eaters.
It lives on Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa Island, and spends the winter as an adult.
How the Chinese tiger beetle lives
It lives in sunny woodland and on forest paths beside streams. The larva makes a hole in the ground and catches small insects such as ants that come near.
TAKAO 599 MUSEUMBasic data
- Size
- 18–20 mm
- Range
- Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa Island
Where the Chinese tiger beetle has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ハンミョウ
- 简体中文
- 中华虎甲
- 繁體中文
- 中國虎甲
- 한국어
- 길앞잡이
- Español
- Cicindela china
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- まちだエコライフ推進公社 — まちだのいきものたち ハンミョウChecked: 2026-11-03
- TAKAO 599 MUSEUM — ハンミョウChecked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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