Bembidion tetracolum Say, 1823 male (5800246948)

''Bembidion'' is the largest

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of beetles in the family

Carabidae Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, the Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, around 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe. As of 2015, it is one of the 10 most species-rich animal fami ...

by number of species.Carl H. Lindroth. ''The Carabidae (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark''. Leiden - Copenhagen: Brill - Scandinavian Science Press, 1985. . P. 129-199. All species are small (less than 7.5 mm) and move very fast. Most of them live close to water. The genus has a biantitropical distribution, meaning they are found in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, but not in the tropics.Philip Jackson Darlington. ''Biogeography of the Southern End of the World''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965. P. 22, 45. In warmer regions it is substituted by closely related '' Tachys'' and other genera.

Taxonomy

There have been many attempts to divide it into smaller genera, most notably by

René Jeannel René Jeannel (23 March 1879 – 20 February 1965) was a French entomologist.Jean-Jacques Amigo, « Jeannel (René, Gabriel, Marie) », in Nouveau Dictionnaire de biographies roussillonnaises, vol. 3 Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre, Perpignan, ...

in 1941 and by G.G. Perrault in 1981, but none of them have been generally accepted. This genus is divided into numerus

subgenera In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...

, 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

External links

Tree of Life
A list of species {{Taxonbar, from=Q1757595