Pyotr Petrov

• Senior Researcher at Lomonosov Moscow State University

Flight speed is positively correlated with body size in animals ¹ . However, miniature featherwing beetles can fly at speeds and accelerations of insects three times their size ² . Here we show that this performance results from a reduced wing mass and a previously unknown type of wing-motion cycle. Our experiment combines three-dimensional reconst...

New faunistic data are presented for six water beetle families from Mongolia. The family Dryopidae, with the genus Dryops Olivier, 1791, and the genus Platambus Thomson, 1859 of the family Dytiscidae are recorded for the first time from Mongolia. Agabus semipunctatus (Kirby, 1837), previously known only from the Nearctic Region, is reported for the...

Flight speed generally correlates positively with animal body size [1]. Surprisingly, miniature featherwing beetles can fly at speeds and accelerations of insects three times as large [2]. We show here that this performance results from a previously unknown type of wing motion. Our experiment combines three-dimensional reconstructions of morphology...

Most microinsects have feather-like bristled wings, a state known as ptiloptery, but featherwing beetles (family ptiliidae) are unique among winged microinsects in their ability to fold such wings. An asymmetrical wing folding pattern, found also in the phylogenetically related rove beetles (Staphylinidae), was ancestral for ptiliidae. Using scanni...

Size is a key to locomotion. In insects, miniaturization leads to fundamental changes in wing structure and kinematics, making the study of flight in the smallest species important for basic biology and physics, and, potentially, for applied disciplines. However, the flight efficiency of miniature insects has never been studied, and their speed and...

Twenty-eight species of water beetles and shore beetles are recorded for the first time from Mongolia: Dytiscidae (16): Acilius sulcatus (Linnaeus, 1758), Agabus amoenus (Solsky, 1874), A. blatta Jakowlew, 1897, A. japonicus continentalis Guéorguiev, 1970, A. moestus (Curtis, 1835), A. thomsoni (Sahlberg, 1871), Bidessus nasutus Sharp, 1887, Colymb...

The wings of Ptiliidae, the coleopteran family containing the smallest free-living insects, are analyzed in detail for the first time. A reconstruction of the evolutionary sequence of changes associated with miniaturization is proposed. The wings of several species are described using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The morpholog...

Activity traps (ATs) are a widely used method of sampling water beetles (Coleoptera). This case study attempts to investigate the effect of mouth size and trapping effort on the performance of the ATs and reveal sex ratios and proportions of morphs in dimorphic females in populations of Dytiscidae and Noteridae in one particular area of Udomelsky D...

In spite of the recent improvements in the understanding of carnivorous plants’ biology, some questions have remained unanswered. In this study, the segregation of food niches (i.e. specialization on different categories of prey) for three sympatric carnivorous temperate Drosera species with different shapes of trapping leaves is tested. Potentiall...

The chalconatus-and erichsoni-groups were re-vised by Fery & Nilsson [1993; then still placed in the genus Agabus Leach, 1817]. It was suggested in that revision and later shown by Nilsson [2000] that these two species groups should be included in the genus Ilybius because they share the character states that are synapomorphic with the other specie...

Males of the so far almost unknown Palearctic Oreodytes dauricus (MOTSCHULSKY, 1860) are studied allowing for the first time a comparison of their genitalia with those of other members of the Oreodytes alakanus species-group. It is postulated that the Nearctic Oreodytes recticollis (FALL, 1926) is a subjective junior synonym of O. dauricus. Oreodyt...

Hydroporus tatianae sp. n. is described from north-western Siberia, and Hydroporus kabakovi sp. n. from the Chitinskaya Oblast' in south-eastern Siberia and from Mongolia. Both new species are similar to the Nearctic H. larsoni Nilsson, 1984, the Holarctic H. fuscipennis Schaum, 1868, and the Palaearctic H. pseudopubescens Zimmermann, 1919, which s...

The species considered to belong to the subgenus Haliplus Latreille, 1802 and known to occur in the Palaearctic region are reviewed. Latreille's selection of Dytiscus impressus Fabricius, 1787 as [misidentified] type species, is amended in the sense of the nominal species and not the misidentified identity, following iczn article 70.3.1. Dytiscus i...

Several species of Hydroporus Clair- ville, 1806, chiefly members of the Hydroporus pla- nus-group, are revised at least in part, and information on the taxonomy and the distribution of these and some other species of the genus is given. The follow- ing new synonymies are proposed: Hydroporus trans- grediens Gschwendtner, 1923 = Hydroporus discretu...