Hydrophilidae
Hydrophilidae, also known colloquially as water scavenger beetles, is a family of beetles. Aquatic hydrophilids are notable for their long maxillary palps, which are longer than their antennae. Several of the former subfamilies of Hydrophilidae have recently been removed and elevated to family rank; Epimetopidae, Georissidae, Helophoridae, Hydrochidae, and Spercheidae. While the majority of hydrophilids are aquatic, around a third of described species are terrestrial, mostly belonging to the subfamily Sphaeridiinae.

Darkone · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
- water scavenger beetlePBDB
- Sits inside
- HydrophiloideaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 182 million years on record.
The record covers at least 182.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 0 Mya.
306 occurrences of Hydrophilidae 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
306 occurrences- Early Jurassic2%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassic3%
- Early Cretaceous5%
- Late Cretaceousunder 1%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
- Eocene14%
- Oligocene8%
- Miocene14%
- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene46%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
53 formations
- Highbury Silts and Sands Formation50
- Upper Freshwater-Molasse Formation19
- Tsubusagawa Formation15
- Rott Formation11
- Florissant Formation11
- Green River Formation10
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The named rock units Hydrophilidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 84 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hydrophilidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Hydrophilidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
6,183 taxa- Coleoptera18 sites
- Curculionidae15 sites
- Stenus15 sites
- Staphylinidae14 sites
- Carabidae12 sites
- Elateridae12 sites
- Bembidion11 sites
- Dytiscidae11 sites
- Formicidae11 sites
- Aphodius10 sites
- Aleocharinae9 sites
- Bledius9 sites
- Chrysomelidae9 sites
- Dyschirius9 sites
- Helophorus8 sites
- Lepidoptera8 sites
- Bibionidae7 sites
- Donacia7 sites
- Tachinus7 sites
- Tipula7 sites
- Agabus6 sites
- Amara6 sites
- Chironomus6 sites
- Diptera6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 145 sites for Hydrophilidae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
91 references- Marine Isotope Stage 9 environments of fluvial deposits at Hackney, north London, UK50
- Fossil insects and their paleoenvironments of the Pliocene Tsubusagawa Formation in Ajimu Basin, Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan15
- Paleogeography of the lower Volga at the end of Atelian time based on entomological and botanical data12
- Heer, 184711
- A Late Pleistocene fauna and flora from Upton Warren, Worcestershire10
- Beiträge zur Insektenfauna Oeningens: Coleoptera. Geodephagen, Hydrocanthariden, Gyriniden, Brachelytren, Clavicornen, Lamellicornen und Buprestiden9
- The beetle (Coleoptera) fauna of the Insect Limestone (late Eocene), Isle of Wight, southern England8
- The paleoenvironment of the Olympia beds based on fossil beetles from Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.8
- Modern hydrophilid clades present and widespread in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (Coleoptera: Hydrophiloidea: Hydrophilidae)8
- Diversification of the greater hydrophilines clade of giant water scavenger beetles dated back to the Middle Eocene (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae: Hydrophilina)8
- Late Cenozoic insects of northern Eurasia8
- Late Devensian river deposits beneath the floodplain terrace of the River Thames at Abingdon, Berkshire, England8
Each of the 306 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. 79 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 Hydrophilidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Darkone
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- 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 itHydrophiloidea through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802