Hydrophilidae
Water Scavenger Beetles
Hydrophilidae is the second largest family of North American aquatic beetles, including roughly 200 species. The larvae and adults are aquatic or semiaquatic; the pupae are terrestrial. They prefer lentic waters such as ponds and shallow lakes, or sometimes in pools at edges of streams. Unlike most beetles, the adults of this family tend to swim by alternating strokes with their hind legs, rather than moving them in unison. Also atypical, they have a habit of surfacing for air head-first, breaking the water surface tension with a clubbed antenna, the apical segments of which are covered with dense water-repelling (hydrophobic) hairs. The adults have a well-developed plastron to hold air underwater; in well-oxygenated water, it serves as a gill. Larvae frequently surface to take in air from the end of the abdomen. Larvae are usually predators of other invertebrates, and can even break snail shells with their strong jaws. However, only a small number of adults are predators, most are omnivores or detritivores.