Gyrinidae

The whirligig beetles are water beetles, comprising the family Gyrinidae, that usually swim on the surface of the water if undisturbed, though they swim underwater when threatened. They get their common name from their habit of swimming rapidly in circles when alarmed, and are also notable for their divided eyes which are believed to enable them to see both above and below water. The family includes some 700 extant species worldwide, in 15 genera, plus a few fossil species. Most species are very similar in general appearance, though they vary in size from perhaps 3 mm to 18 mm in length. They tend to be flattened and rounded in cross section, in plain view as seen from above, and in longitudinal section. In fact their shape is a good first approximation to an ellipsoid, with legs and other appendages fitting closely into a streamlined surface. Whirligig beetles belong to the beetle suborder Adephaga, which also includes ground beetles and diving beetles.

Gyrinidae

Udo Schmidt from Deutschland · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
Also called
whirligig beetlePBDB
Sits inside
AdephagaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 251 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.902 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 254.14 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Permian — about 3 of 74 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 74 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 74 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 74 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 7 of 74 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 74 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 3 of 74 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 10 of 74 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 74 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 74 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 74 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 74 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 74 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 74 occurrencesPleistocene — about 34 of 74 occurrences259–251 Mya — about 3 occurrences207–199 Mya — about 2 occurrences199–190 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences190–181 Mya — about 4 occurrences181–173 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences156–147 Mya — about 2 occurrences147–138 Mya — about 2 occurrences138–130 Mya — about 1 occurrence130–121 Mya — about 1 occurrence121–112 Mya — about 7 occurrences104–95 Mya — about 2 occurrences95–86 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–60 Mya — about 3 occurrences60–52 Mya — about 1 occurrence43–35 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences35–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–17 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences17–8.6 Mya — about 4 occurrences8.6–0 Mya — about 37 occurrences251.902 Mya129 ka259 Mya0 Mya

74 occurrences of Gyrinidae 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

74 occurrences

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

28 formations

Highbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ETsubusagawa — 33.40°N, 131.35°EChichikan — 64.75°N, 90.74°EChichikan — 64.77°N, 90.61°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°EDarmakan — 49.42°N, 130.07°ETurga — 52.96°N, 117.78°ETurga — 50.83°N, 116.19°EInsektenmergel — 47.47°N, 8.23°EBushi — 35.84°N, 139.35°EBushi — 35.85°N, 139.38°EKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WOler — 69.50°N, 158.50°EOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ECheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°EDurlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°WAbasheva — 54.50°N, 87.53°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EDaya — 51.88°N, 117.43°ETurga — 51.35°N, 99.35°EGodymboyskaya — 51.12°N, 119.73°EByankinskaya — 51.00°N, 117.90°EJiufotang — 42.00°N, 120.00°E

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The named rock units Gyrinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gyrinidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Gyrinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

3,365 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 60 sites for Gyrinidae, 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

34 references

Each of the 74 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. 22 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 Gyrinidae

Credit
Udo Schmidt from Deutschland
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Gyrinidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itAdephaga through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1810