Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada

Family Gyrinidae - Whirligig Beetles

Whirlygig Beetle - Dineutus emarginatus or americanus?? - First PA Datapoint - Dineutus Taumelkäfer - Gyrinus plicifer Black water beetle - Dineutus Diving Beetle maybe ? - Gyrinus Gyrinus elevatus - female Male, Gyrinus plicifer? - Gyrinus plicifer - male Gyrinus latilimbis (Fall) - Gyrinus latilimbus - male
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Adephaga
Family Gyrinidae (Whirligig Beetles)
Explanation of Names
Gyrinidae Latreille 1810
Numbers
60 spp. in 4 genera in our area, ~900 spp. in 14 genera worldwide arranged into 3 subfamilies (all but 2 spp. are in the Gyrininae)(1)(2)(3)
Identification
Neartic genera:
Spanglerogyrus <3mm (1 sp. South, East)
Gyretes 3-5 mm; pronotal/elytral margins pubescent (4 spp. West, South)
Dineutus 9-15 mm (14 spp. Widespread)
Gyrinus 4-7 mm (>40 spp. Widespread)
accessible keys in(4); new key to genera in(5)
Range
worldwide
Works Cited
1.American Beetles, Volume I: Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga: Staphyliniformia
Arnett, R.H., Jr., and M. C. Thomas. (eds.). 2000. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL.
2.Order Coleoptera Linnaeus, 1758. In: Zhang Z.-Q. (ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification...
Ślipiński S.A., Leschen R.A.B., Lawrence J.F. 2011. Zootaxa 3148: 203–208.
3.Phylogeny and classification of whirligig beetles (Coleoptera: Gyrinidae): relaxed-clock model outperforms parsimony...
Miller K.B., Bergsten J. 2012. Systematic Entomology 37: 706–746.
4.The Water Beetles of Florida
Epler J.H. 2010. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Tallahassee. 414 pp.
5.The New World whirligig beetles of the genus Dineutus Macleay, 1825 (Coleoptera, Gyrinidae, Gyrininae, Dineutini)
Gustafson GT, Miller KB. 2015. Zookeys; 476: 1-135.