All carabids except the quite primitive flanged bombardier beetles (Paussinae) have a groove on their fore leg tibiae bearing a comb of hairs used for cleaning their antennae.

The Anthiini, though, can mechanically squirt their defensive secretions for considerable distances and are able to aim with a startling degree of accuracy; in Afrikaans, they are known as oogpisters ("eye-pissers").

[2] Some run swiftly to catch their prey; tiger beetles (Cicindelinae) can sustain speeds of 9 km/h (5.6 mph)[10] – in relation to their body length they are among the fastest land animals on Earth.

Large numbers of the forest caterpillar hunter (C. sycophanta), native to Europe, were shipped to New England for biological control of the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) as early as 1905.

The use of insecticides specifically for carabid intrusion may lead to unfortunate side effects, such as the release of their secretions, so it generally is not a good idea unless the same applications are intended to exclude ants, parasites or other crawling pests.

Especially in the 19th century and to a lesser extent today, their large size and conspicuous coloration, as well as the odd morphology of some (e.g. the Lebiini), made many ground beetles a popular object of collection and study for professional and amateur coleopterologists.

In his autobiography, he fondly recalled his experiences with Licinus and Panagaeus, and wrote: No poet ever felt more delight at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing in Stephen's Illustrations of British Insects the magic words, "captured by C. Darwin, Esq.

While no completely firm consensus exists, a few points are generally accepted: The ground beetles seemingly consist of a number of more basal lineages and the extremely diverse Harpalinae, which contain over half the described species and into which several formerly independent families had to be subsumed.

Other classifications, while generally agreeing with the division into a basal radiation of more primitive lineages and the more advanced group informally called "Carabidae Conjunctae",[14] differ in details.