What is this beetle? Found in heather in snowdonia We were walking in the hills of snowdonia the other day and my girlfriend found this in the heather: !enter image description here I've never seen anything like it. Can anyone identify it? It was the biggest beetle I've ever seen.

I believe it's the Violet Ground Beetle \- _Carabus violaceus_. This is a close relative to the _Carabus coriaceus_ posted by Jon.

The purple colour is a give away, but as in many insect groups there are often very similar species. As pointed out in the comments to this anwer, this is the case for _C. violaceus_ and _C. problematicus_ (differences)

There are websites like observado.org where sightings can be added as a species or for instance "unknown beetle", where they are reviewed (depending on the availability of the volunteering experts) or identified.