Haliplidae
family of beetles
The Haliplidae are a family of water beetles that swim using an alternating motion of the legs. They are therefore clumsy in water (compared e.g. with the Dytiscidae or Hydrophilidae), and prefer to get around by crawling. The family consists of about 200 species in five genera, distributed wherever there is freshwater habitat; it is the only extant member of superfamily Haliploidea. They are also known as crawling water beetles or haliplids.
Description
The adults of these beetles are generally oval in shape, with a very convex upperside, and are generally 1.5–5.0 mm (0.059–0.197 in) long. They are generally yellowish to light brown in color, frequently with light and dark patterns dotted with 10 or more rows of punctures on the elytra. The family's most distinctive characteristic is the large coxal plates of the hindlegs, which are immobile (though not fused in the centerline) and extend back along the underside to cover most of the abdomen base and the hindleg trochanters and femora. They are used as air storage supplementing the air carried under the elytra.
The compound eyes are markedly protruding from a smallish head, which bears antennae with 11 segments set upon an antennophore with a conspicuously short base (scapus).
“Haliplidae” enters the record as family of beetles. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Haliplidae, family and beetles can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q259362. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Haliplidae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.