Family NAUCORIDAE Leach, 1815 - creeping water bugs, saucer bugs
J.T. Polhemus
The family contains 36 genera and about 325 species, distributed worldwide. All species are predaceous on arthropods, molluscs, and other small invertebrates. The painful bites of naucorids are well-known. The temperate species live mostly in lentic habitats, creeping amongst vegetation, but the more abundant tropical species mostly prefer streams, often beneath stones or pebbles in swift water, or swimming freely in quiet reaches. Naucorids overwinter as adults, and also as nymphs in warm climates. Eggs are inserted in the stems or leaves of aquatic plants (lentic species) or glued to large stones in swift water (lotic species). Some species are wing-dimorphic, with flightless forms either brachypterous or submacropterous with reduced hind wings.
World catalogue: La Rivers, 1971, 1974 (suppl.), 1976 (suppl.). World overview: J.T. Polhemus, 1979. Palaearctic catalogue: J.T. Polhemus, 1995f. Monographs: Popov, 1970; Stål, 1876 (outdated); Usinger, 1941. Morphology: Parsons, 1966; Parsons & Hewson, 1976.