Gehringia olympicaDavid R. Maddison
Gehringia includes only one carabid species, Gehringia olympica, discovered in 1927 by Philip Darlington (Darlington, 1933). Members of this species are minute, about 1.6-1.7 mm long, and live among gravel and coarse sand on the shores of mountain streams in western North America.
Gehringia olympica occurs along the shore of mountain streams, among coarse sand within 2 m of the water. They can be very common, with densities of at least 50 per square meter.
Restricted to the mountainous regions of North America from Oregon and Montana north to Yukon and the North West Territories:
Bell, R.T. 1964. Does Gehringia belong to the Isochaeta? The Coleopterists Bulletin 18:59-61.
Darlington, P.J. Jr. 1933. A new tribe of Carabidae (Coleoptera) from the western United States. Pan-Pacific Entomologist 9:110-114.
Erwin, T.L. 1984.Composition and origin of the ground beetle fauna (Coleoptera, Carabidae). In C.H. Fernando (editor) Ecology and Biogeography in Sri Lanka. Dr W. Junk, The Hague. 505 pp.
Erwin, T.L. 1985. The taxon pulse: a general pattern of lineage radiation and extinction among carabid beetles. Pages 437-472 in G.E. Ball (editor) Taxonomy, Phylogeny and Zoogeography of Beetles and Ants. A Volume Dedicated to the Memory of Philip Jackson Darlington, Jr. (1904-1983). Dr W. Junk, The Hague. xiii + 514 pp.
Hammond, P.M. 1979. Wing-folding mechanisms of beetles, with special reference to investigations of adephagan phylogeny (Coleoptera). Pages 113-180 in T.L. Erwin, G.E. Ball, D.R. Whitehead, and A.L. Halpern, eds., Carabid beetles: their evolution, natural history, and classification. Dr W. Junk, The Hague. 635 pp.
Lindroth, C.H. 1960. The larva of Trachypachus Mtsch., Gehringia Darl., and Opisthius Kirby, (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Opuscula Entomologica 25:30-42.
Lindroth, C.H. 1961. The ground-beetles (Carabidae, excl. Cicindelinae) of Canada and Alaska. Part 2. Opuscula Entomologica Supplementum XX. pp. 1-200.
Maddison, D.R. 1985. The discovery of Gehringia olympica Darlington (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Pages 35-37 in G.E. Ball (editor) Taxonomy, Phylogeny and Zoogeography of Beetles and Ants. A Volume Dedicated to the Memory of Philip Jackson Darlington, Jr. (1904-1983). Dr W. Junk, The Hague. xiii + 514 pp.
David R. Maddison
Oregon State University
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Maddison, David R. 1995. Gehringia olympica http://tolweb.org/Gehringia_olympica/68/1995.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/. Version 01 January 1995 (under construction).