Numbers
45 species in North America listed at
nearctica.com
26 species in Canada and Alaska
Identification
Adult: body convex, boat-shaped, with; middle and hind tibiae equipped with fringe of swimming hairs; legs move alternately while swimming (all are characteristics of the family); some species have a single black spot on anterior margin of pronotum (as opposed to two black spots on posterior margin of pronotum, as in Peltodytes species)
species identification often requires examination of male genitalia
Larva: elongate, yellowish or brownish with small dorsal projections on first several abdominal segments, and long pointed caudal appendage
Range
throughout North America, including the arctic
also represented worldwide except Antarctica
Habitat
adults and larvae live among algae and aquatic vegetation at edges of ponds, lakes, backwaters of streams; adults may be attracted to light
Food
larvae feed on algae, sucking the contents of single cells with their highly specialized mandibles
adults feed on algae, chironomid eggs, oligochaet worms, small crustaceans, and hydrozoans
Life Cycle
overwinters as an adult in permanent standing water
See Also
some adults in the genus
Peltodytes have two small black spots on posterior margin of pronotum, whereas
Haliplus lack these two spots [
How to Know the Insects; Roger Bland, 1978]
Internet References
live adult image of undetermined
Haliplus species (Jeff Adams, xerces.org)
live larva and adult images of undetermined
Haliplus species, plus other info (U. of Michigan)
detailed overview of family Haliplidae plus references and pinned adult image of
Haliplus fasciatus by David Maddison (Rolf Beutel, Tree of Life, U. of Arizona)
pinned adult images of
H. immaculicollis (Insects of Cedar Creek, Minnesota)
pinned adult images of
H. concolor and
H. leechi (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, California)
live adult image of undetermined
Haliplus species, plus general info on water beetles (U. of Saskatchewan)
adult illustrations of
H. solitarius, H. nitens plus other info (Sharon Jasper, U. of Texas)
distribution in Canada; PDF doc list of provinces and territories, plus Alaska (R.E. Roughley, Haliplidae; in Checklist of Beetles of Canada and Alaska)
world and North American checklists plus global species numbers, classification history, references (Warren Brigham, U. of Illinois)
Contributed by
Robin McLeod on 7 August, 2006 - 10:35pm
Last updated 8 August, 2006 - 12:02am
