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Project Noah Nature School
Dytiscidae
The beetle was quite large, about 5cm long by 2.5 cm wide. The shell was olive green in colour with a goldish brown edge and the underside was a lovely shiny brown almost like polished wood. This was the third different beetle I had seen along this stretch of beach in the same day. When I found him on the shore line just outside of Kuşadası, Turkey he was upside down, when I turned him over he quite happily shuffled off.
Spotted on Apr 25, 2012
Submitted on May 1, 2012
6 Comments
You're welcome, glad I could help.
Thank you for the information oxyjack, I have amended the spotting.
Many aquatic beetles and true bugs will fly long distances in search of water. Once when in the desert, we were bombarded by backswimmers who were bouncing off the windshields of our vehicles because the light reflected off them in a way that made the insects think they were pools of water.
Hi oxyjak, This beetle was very much alive and kicking, he was upside down when I found him on the shore line, but when I turned him over he carried on along the beach. I did wonder if he was a fresh water variety because of his colouration, but I was confused as there is no fresh water close to where I found him.
Are you certain that this is a marine species? Based on it's size and pattern, I'd say it belongs to the genus Dytiscus, which is a fresh water genus. Like other adult aquatic beetles, they CAN fly, and this one may have landed in the tide pool not realizing it was salt water. You found it dead, right? According to the World Register of Marine Species, only six general of diving beetles live in the intertidal zone, and they are all small species (body length less than 1 cm). http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p...
This is one of the predaceous diving beetles, Family Dytiscidae. I was not aware that any of the species were intertidal, the North American dytiscids are all freshwater beetles.