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A review of the scarce and threatened Coleoptera of Great Britain – Part 3: Water beetles of Great Britain (Species Status No. 1) 2010

Abstract

In total, 311 species were assessed for this review, four of them regarded as subspecies (Nebrioporus depressus depressus and N. depressus elegans, and Ochthebius viridis viridis and O. viridis fallaciosus), the rest as species. The area covered includes Great Britain (i.e. England, Scotland and Wales, excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles). Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have produced a joint Red List of water beetles for the whole of Ireland (Foster, Nelson & O Connor 2009).

Jäch & Balke (2008) estimate that there are currently about 18,000 species of water beetle of which 70% have been described. About thirty families have aquatic representatives, with 25 of them having at least half of them aquatic. The first step of the review was to identify what is included in the term “water beetle”. Many species of beetle are obligately associated with water with a continuum from those that are found throughout their life-cycle under water (reed beetles in the genus Macroplea and a few weevils), through the majority (i.e. those that pupate out of the water but are aquatic as both larvae and adults), and on to those that live in the water as larvae but are found above and away from the water as adults.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Biota

Reference date 2010··

Citation
Foster, G.N. 2010. A review of the scarce and threatened Coleoptera of Great Britain. Part 3: Water beetles of Great Britain. Species Status No. 1, JNCC, Peterborough, ISSN 1473-0154

Lineage
This publication is one of a series produced under the auspices of the Species Status Assessment project initiated by JNCC in 1999.

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2020·02·26

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

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