This book first reviews the biology of Dytiscidae or water beetles, including life history and ecology. It then defines and keys adults & larvae (when known) of dytiscid fauna of Canada, the United States, and for some taxa also northern Mexico. The focus is on the fauna of Canada & Alaska, and adults of the 276 species known from this region are treated in detail. For each Canadian-Alaskan species, the following information is presented: nomenclature & synonymy; selected references; description, including illustrations of taxonomically important characteristics; comments on classification or variation; notes on ecology; and description of the species range, accompanied by a map of collection records. Checklists of the dytiscid fauna of Canada/Alaska are also presented, with the distribution of the species recorded by province/territory and Canadian ecozone. Includes systematic index.

The first comprehensive book in more than a century to reveal the diversity and natural history of diving beetles. Among the hundreds of thousands of species of beetles, there is one family, containing some 4,300 species, that stands out as one of the most diverse and important groups of aquatic predatory insects. This is the Dytiscidae, whose species are commonly known as diving beetles. No comprehensive treatment of this group has been compiled in over 130 years, a period during which a great many changes in classification and a near quadrupling of known species has occurred. In Diving Beetles of the World, Kelly B. Miller and Johannes Bergsten provide the only full treatments of all 188 Dytiscid genera ever assembled. Entomologists, systematists, limnologists, ecologists, and others with an interest in aquatic systems or insect diversity will find these extensively illustrated keys and taxon accounts immensely helpful. The keys make it possible to identify all taxa from subfamily to genera, and each key and taxon treatment is accompanied by both photographs and detailed pen-and-ink drawings of diagnostic features. Every genus account covers body length, diagnostic characters, classification, species diversity, a review of known natural history, and world distribution. Each account is also accompanied by a range map and at least one high-resolution habitus image of a specimen. Diving beetles are fast becoming important models for aquatic ecology, world biogeography, population ecology, and animal sexual evolution and, with this book, the diversity of the group is finally accessible.

Concerns about global biodiversity are rising dramatically, yet we are lagging behind in the most basic prerequisite for its understanding and conservation: the inventory. Insect species may make up five or ten times the number of all other plant and animal species combined, and as such they represent one of the major challenges in biosystematic science. World Catalogue of Insects is an initiative aiming at compiling worldscale, authoritative catalogues of monophyletic insect taxa. We are therefore proud to launch this major series. Volumes will as a minimum contain standard nomenclatoral information on all names pertaining to the taxon treated, including type locality and distribution to the extent this is relevant. Additional information is optional, e. g., location, status and condition of types; biology; bibliographical information; pest status; vector status; etc. This volume three focuses on Dytiscidae (Coleoptera). (Series: World Catalogue of Insects)

Predaceous diving beetles (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) constitute one of the largest families of freshwater insects (~ 4,200 species). Although dytiscid adults and larvae are ubiquitous throughout a variety of aquatic habitats and are significant predators on other aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates, there are no compilations that have focused on summarizing the knowledge of their ecology, systematics, and biology. Such knowledge would benefit anyone working in aquatic systems where dytiscids are an important part of the food web. Moreover, this work will allow a greater appreciation of dytiscids as model organisms for investigations of fundamental principles derived from ecological and evolutionary theory. Contributed chapters are by authors who are actively engaged in studying dytiscids and each chapter offers a synthesis of the current knowledge of a variety of topics and will provide future directions for research.

This book is a revised edition of the first of three volumes in the Handbook of Zoology series which treats the systematics and biology of Coleoptera. With over 380,000 described species, Coleoptera are by far the most species-rich order of insects and the largest group of animals of comparable geological age. Moreover, numerous species are tremendously important economically. The beetle volumes meet the demand of modern biologists seeking to answer questions about Coleoptera phylogeny, evolution, and ecology. This first Coleoptera volume covers the suborders Archostemata, Myxophaga and Adephaga, and the basal series of Polyphaga, with information on world distribution, biology, morphology of all life stages, phylogeny and comments on taxonomy.

This volume treats the 157 species of predaceaous diving beetles (Dytiscidae) found in Finland, East Fennoscandia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Baltic States. Introducing chapters provide general information about the state of knowledge and distribution, morphology of adults and larvae, bionomics, collecting and rearing. The main part comprises keys and descriptions for identification of adult beetles, including information on distribution and biology of all species. A catalogue shows provincial records in Fennoscandia and Denmark. The book contains 608 figures and 3 plates. An up-to-date, well illustrated identification manual for the Fennoscandian and Danish Dytiscidae has been wanting for decades. This work is based on the latest advances in synonymy and taxonomy of the family, and on the study of thousands of specimens in collections and field.