Does the beetle Donacia crassipes occur in North America?

Nature Talk
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It is a quite striking long-legged metallic blue beetle which breeds on water lilies. The adults sit around on the lily pads. It is native to Europe but there are a couple of dozen records on iNaturalist from USA and Canada. Some of these are clearly not crassipes, but many look very similar to it, so I wondered if D. crassipes has become established in America? I can’t find it on lists of invasive species for USA, but it might not be classed as invasive. On the other hand, I think I read there are six species of Donacia on water lilies in North America so it is possible some of those resemble D. crassipes.

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As far as I am aware, no, it does not. It looks like most of those observations are CV ids. Not impossible to find it, especially given some recent discovered of Palearctic water beetles in se Canada/ne US. Most ids of the genus should be at genus regardless.

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Thanks for that.
John

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I am working on a taxonomic revision of the genus in North America, having previously published revisions of the other genera already. About 10 species are Nymphaea or Nuphar feeders (only in subgenus Donacia), the rest are breeders of various general of emergent marginal plants. I’ve seen many thousands of museum specimens and found no exotic species of the subfamily in these collections, pretty much every collection in North America and many European collections.

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Thanks for your comments. I would welcome a pdf of your North American Donacia revision when it is finished, please.

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Everything I’ve published can be found inResearchGate, and this a will add as well,

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