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Dytiscus

 
Dytiscus

 
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Dytiscus
 
 
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Dytiscus (based on Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 d?t????, "able to dive") is a genus of predacious diving beetles that usually live in wetland
Wetland

File:Mangrove trees in Everglades.JPGA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water....
s and pond
Pond

A pond is a body of water smaller than a lake, both being examples of terrain feature. Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares to 8 hectares used to distinguish the smaller from...
s. They are predators that can reduce mosquito
Mosquito

Mosquitoes are common flying insects in the family Culicidae that are found around the world. There are about 3,500 species. They have a pair of scaled wings, a pair of halteres, a slender body, and six long legs....
 larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
e. They are slim, usually around two inches long and have six legs. Some species of the genus are halophile
Halophile

Halophiles are extremophile organisms that thrive in environment s with very high concentrations of salt. The name comes from Greek language for "salt-loving"....
s and are very tolerant of high water salinity, as exemplified by the occurrence of some Dytiscus species in the highly saline Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana
Botswana

The Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland Protectorate, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth of Nations on 30 September 1966....
.
t beetles and their larvae are aquatic but the pupae spend their life in the ground.






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Dytiscus (based on Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 d?t????, "able to dive") is a genus of predacious diving beetles that usually live in wetland
Wetland

File:Mangrove trees in Everglades.JPGA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water....
s and pond
Pond

A pond is a body of water smaller than a lake, both being examples of terrain feature. Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares to 8 hectares used to distinguish the smaller from...
s. They are predators that can reduce mosquito
Mosquito

Mosquitoes are common flying insects in the family Culicidae that are found around the world. There are about 3,500 species. They have a pair of scaled wings, a pair of halteres, a slender body, and six long legs....
 larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
e. They are slim, usually around two inches long and have six legs. Some species of the genus are halophile
Halophile

Halophiles are extremophile organisms that thrive in environment s with very high concentrations of salt. The name comes from Greek language for "salt-loving"....
s and are very tolerant of high water salinity, as exemplified by the occurrence of some Dytiscus species in the highly saline Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana
Botswana

The Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland Protectorate, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth of Nations on 30 September 1966....
.

Life history

Adult beetles and their larvae are aquatic but the pupae spend their life in the ground. Females lay eggs inside the tissue of aquatic plants such as reeds. The eggs hatch in about three weeks and the larvae are elongate with a round and flat head and strong mandibles. The larvae are predatory and their mandible have grooves on their inner edge through which they are able to suck the body fluids of their prey. The larvae take air from the surface of the water using hairs at the end of their abdomen. These lead to spiracles into which the air is taken.

Once the larvae grow to some size, they move to soil at the edge of water and burrow into a cell and pupate.

The adults breathe by going to the surface and upending. They collect air under their elytra and are able to breathe this collected air using spiracles hidden under the elytra.

In Dytiscus marginalis and other species the tarsus of the fore legs is modified in males to form a circular sucker. A reduced sucker is also seen in the mid leg of the male.

Parasitoids

Eggs of Dytiscus are sometimes parasitized by wasps of the families Eulophidae
Eulophidae

Eulophidae is a large family of hymenopteran insects, with over 4,300 described species in some 300 genera . The family as presently defined also includes the genus Elasmus, which was previously treated as a separate family, "Elasmidae", and is now treated as a subfamily of Eulophidae....
, Mymaridae and other Chalcidoidea.

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