Agabus sturmii

Description

Agabus sturmii is a species of beetle native to the Palearctic (including Europe) and the Near East. In Europe, it is only found in Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain including Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides and Isle of Man, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, mainland Denmark, Estonia, Finland, mainland France, Germany, Hungary, the Republic of Ireland, mainland Italy, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, North Macedonia, mainland Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, mainland Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Agabus is a large genus of predatory aquatic beetles in the family Dytiscidae, proposed in 1817 by William Elford Leach and named after Agabus, an early follower of Christianity. The adult beetles are moderate-sized, 5 to 14 mm long. The genus is primarily Holarctic in distribution, with only a few species known from the Afrotropical and Neotropical realms. Three species of Agabus, namely A. clypealis, A. discicollis and A. hozgargantae are endangered according to the IUCN Red List. The division into subgenera is not widely accepted. However, a number of species groups are recognized after the works of David J. Larson and Anders N. Nilsson. The genus is probably polyphyletic or paraphyletic. In a recent study of mitochondrial DNA, Agabus was found paraphyletic with respect to several of the species groups of Platambus, a closely related genus in the tribe Agabini. Lately the taxonomy of the genus has been revised, and some groups of species were transferred from Agabus sensu stricto to other genera in the tribe Agabini.