Gyrinus minutus

Gyrinus minutus is a species of whirligig beetle in the family Gyrinidae. It is found in North America and Europe.The body is entirely black with a dull appearance due to its microsculpture. G. minutus typically inhabit open edges of larger water bodies like lakes and reservoirs but also reside in sparsely vegetated ponds and slow-flowing river parts. Their swimming abilities are weaker than other gyrinids, and they often disperse in groups when disturbed. Reproduction begins in early spring with mating on water surfaces, followed by egg-laying on aquatic plants. Larvae hatch after a week, growing quickly and reaching maturity within three to four weeks. They are capable of flight, and adults can be found in new locations throughout the summer. G. minutus lacks volatile production for predator defense or has minimal amounts, likely due to its behavior and habitat preferences. Interestingly, while G. minutus rarely aggregates, it can still respond to alarm signals from other species.

Gyrinus minutus

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
GyrinusPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Gyrinus minutus 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

2 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.

Gyrinus minutus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Gyrinus minutus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

326 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Gyrinus minutus, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Gyrinus minutus

Credit
Edmund Reitter
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itGyrinus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fabricius 1798