Philonthus cognatus Stephens, 1832

NOVA SCOTIA: Kings Co.: Kentville, 5.VI.1949, D. Eidt, (1, NSAC) ; Kentville, 23.V.1950, V.R. Vickery, (1, NSAC) ; Kentville, 25.V.1950, P.N. Grainger, (2, NSAC) .

Majka and Klimaszewski (2008) reported the detection of this species in the Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia) in 1951. The above records establish that P. cognatus was present in the region from at least 1949. It was first recorded 1884 in North America in North Carolina (Horn 1884). Widely distributed in the Palaearctic across Europe to eastern Siberia and Jilin in China, it is found in a wide range of habitats that include forests, moist meadows, fields, edges of ponds, and marshes, particularly in rotting plant debris (Smetana 1995).