Bembidion

Bembidion is the largest genus of beetles in the family Carabidae by number of species.[2] All species are small (less than 7.5 mm) and move very fast. Most of them live close to water.[2] The genus has a biantitropical distribution, meaning they are found in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, but not in the tropics.[3] In warmer regions it is substituted by closely related Tachys and other genera.[2]

Bembidion
Bembidion quadrimaculatum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Carabidae
Subtribe: Bembidiina
Genus: Bembidion
Latreille, 1802[1]
Diversity
At least 1300 species
Bembidion tetracolum

Taxonomy
See also: List of Bembidion species

There have been many attempts to divide it into smaller genera, most notably by René Jeannel in 1941 and by G.G. Perrault in 1981, but none of them have been generally accepted.[2]

This genus is divided into numerus subgenera, some of which are elevated to full genus rank by various authors; as noted above, however, no universally accepted way of splitting the genus exists yet. Bembidion subgenera include:

  • Bembidion (Bembidion)
  • Bembidion (Eurytrachelus) (sometimes in Odontium)
  • Bembidion (Notaphus)
  • Bembidion (Ocydromus)
  • Bembidion (Odontium)
  • Bembidion (Zecillenus)

References and notes
  1. Hist. Nat. Crust. Ins. 3: 82. Type species: Carabus quadrimaculatus Linnaeus, 1761 (= Bembidion quadrimaculatum).
  2. Carl H. Lindroth. The Carabidae (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. Leiden - Copenhagen: Brill - Scandinavian Science Press, 1985. ISBN 90-04-07727-8. P. 129-199.
  3. Philip Jackson Darlington. Biogeography of the Southern End of the World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965. P. 22, 45.

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