''Platambus apache'' is a species of predacious diving

beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

belonging to the family

Dytiscidae The Dytiscidae, from the Ancient Greek word δυτικός (''dystikos''), meaning "able to dive", are the predaceous diving beetles, a family of water beetles. They occur in virtually any freshwater habitat around the world, but a few species l ...

. This species is endemic to the

Chiricahua Mountains The Chiricahua Mountains massif is a large mountain range in southeastern Arizona which is part of the Basin and Range province of the west and southwestern United States and northwest Mexico; the range is part of the Coronado National Forest. T ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, USA. It has only been found at elevations of 7,000 feet or above. This species is very similar to '' Platambus spinipes,'' and both species closely resemble

tenebrionid Darkling beetle is the common name for members of the beetle family Tenebrionidae, comprising over 20,000 species in a cosmopolitan distribution. Taxonomy ''Tenebrio'' is the Latin generic name that Carl Linnaeus assigned to some flour beetles ...

beetles. Unlike most diving beetles, it has reduced swimming "hairs", and likely spends most of its time crawling rather than swimming.

References

Endemic fauna of Arizona Endemic insects of the United States Beetles of the United States Beetles described in 1981 {{Dytiscidae-stub