Dytiscus
Dytiscus is a Holarctic genus of predaceous diving beetles that usually live in wetlands and ponds. There are 26 species in this genus distributed in Europe, Asia, North Africa and North and Central America. They are predators that can reduce mosquito larvae.

Edmund Reitter · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DytisciniPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 33 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka.
16 occurrences of Dytiscus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
16 occurrences- Eocene6%
- Oligocene6%
- Miocene31%
- Pleistocene56%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
6 formations
- Upper Freshwater-Molasse Formation2
- Latah Formation2
- Ookui Formation1
- Hirabaru Formation1
- Mizozono Formation1
- Olympia beds Formation1
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The named rock units Dytiscus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dytiscus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Dytiscus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
941 taxa- Carabidae4 sites
- Coleoptera4 sites
- Curculionidae4 sites
- Formicidae4 sites
- Hydrophilidae4 sites
- Ilybius4 sites
- Plateumaris4 sites
- Pterostichus4 sites
- Agabus3 sites
- Bibionidae3 sites
- Chrysomelidae3 sites
- Diptera3 sites
- Donacia3 sites
- Elateridae3 sites
- Entiminae3 sites
- Hydrobius fuscipes3 sites
- Lepidoptera3 sites
- Rhantus3 sites
- Scarabaeidae3 sites
- Syrphidae3 sites
- Acidota crenata2 sites
- Acrididae2 sites
- Anisoptera2 sites
- Anthophorites veterana2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Dytiscus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
15 references- Les insectes fossiles des terrains oligocènes de France2
- The paleoenvironment of the Olympia beds based on fossil beetles from Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.1
- Middle Pleistocene fossil insects from the Hirabaru Formation of Kitsuki City, Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan1
- Late Pleistocene insects from the Mizozono Formation in Yoshimatsu-cho, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan1
- Early Pleistocene ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) from the Ookui Formation in Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, and their biogeographical and paleoenvironmental significance1
- Palaeoenvironmental interpretation of Middle and Late Wisconsinan fossil coleopteran assemblages from western Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA1
- A new species of fossil Coleoptera (Dytiscidae) from the Oviatt Creek fossil locality (Miocene) of the Clearwater National Forest of northern Idaho1
- A Late Pleistocene fauna and flora from Upton Warren, Worcestershire1
- Insects from the Miocene (Latah) of Washington1
- Quaternary myriopods and insects of California1
- Pleistoceńskie owady z Borysławia1
- Note sopra alcuni insetti fossili di Lombardia1
Each of the 16 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 3 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Dytiscus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Edmund Reitter
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dytiscus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dytiscus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDytiscini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758