Sharp’s parallel diver beetle

hydroporus longicornis

About

Hydroporus longicornis is a tiny (3.5-3.8 mm) diving beetle, which lives in open, boggy channels in the uplands. It has a uniform dark upper surface, with reddish legs. The shape of the front half of the shell is almost parallel-sided which gives it its common name along with its originator, David Sharp.

It is rarely recorded, but its scarcity or threat status might be in doubt as it occupies a relatively common habitat. It is however confined to natural habitats of this type as it has never been found in severely modified habitats. It is therefore of great value as a habitat indicator.

Their isolation places them at risk of extinction through the possibility of drought. They are also under threat due to drainage for pasture improvement or from planting trees.

Conservation status

Near Threatened on the GB red list

The secret life of beetles
1. hydroporus longicornis

I heard Kafka was having problems having problems having problems having problems having problems having problems. This Kafka Kafka Kafka Kafka Kafka Kafka. Yes, he be coming into my dreams and wandering around, ‘me stuck,’ he be saying, ‘I just can’t figure this story.’ And I tell him, ‘you stuck cos you human :::::: try thinking like beetle and you will make progress :::::: now leave me sleep.’ Kafka. Yes he be having problems problems problems problems problems problems. Quite apart from his no hard wings, no antennae, no air-bubble management, no beetle spirit, no beetle ancestors, no beetle-sense. His writing though, looks like beetle :::::: That’s the only reason I feed his dreams. He still stuck though. Like all the land creatures, leading waterless lives. Dude can’t even fly. Leave me dream:

Did I emerge from fish?

Did I once have pincers like earwig?

If all life emerged from the ocean, did I leave water only to return, or did I never leave at all?

What is it like to be a bat?

::::::

Beetle dreamscape lifted from Cambridge University Eugenics Society 1920 dream paper ‘Towards a Hierarchical Beetle Taxonomy with Assorted Miscellaneous and Diverse Beetle Refutations.’

a. Rock hopper beetle

rock hopper beetle ‘haunts fast-flowing waters. Big mistake. A fast flowing anything is perilous to a beetle. Will run out of rock to hop onto within fifty generations.’

Lil rock hopper - such a noble struggler

b. Wrinkled brow beetle

‘Such ugliness is inimical to the elegance with which the universe has been designed and therefore its extinction is entirely predictable. Swamps must be drained. Predict dry land and death.’

Ah, dunghead Plough on, ol wrinkle brow, we and the dung love you.

c. Red-legged Moss Beetle

‘Red legs do not maketh the beetle. Such ostentation is unseemly and atavistic. Enacting the Folies Bergere among the moss is shamefully ebullient. Will end up starved and extinct – the way of all shameless creatures.’

Strut your stuff, Moss Beetle, you are far grander in the legs department than me.

d. Narrow scavenger beetle

‘Neither narrowness nor scavenging being attributes inclined to elevate a species, this one needs t he workhouse to attain right-thinking.’

Our urchin comrade, slim as a pickpocket’s filching limbs, always you find something from nothing

e. Gyrinus urinator – aka the artist

‘Obsessed with the beauty of its own creations, this Narcissus of a beetle, makes artistic whirligig patterns on the surface of the water. Destined to the fate of all artists, and those for whom form becomes an obsession. Life is not a fairground. Wurlitzers, waltzers and whirlygig-ers will all be extinct in the new aeon.’

To combine water and swirling is a thing beyond most of us, it is beetling as art, it is the very armpit of excellence.

f. Long-horned water beetle aka Sharp’s parallel diver

‘The parallel-elytra shaped, peat-bog loving, high oxygen absorbing, prey-gulping, saddle-bag or shield shaped back, brown-black beetle -hydroporus longicornis – is evolution’s last word in beetles. This is Sharp’s parallel diver.’

These bipod, hairless, un-diving, magnifying glass-wielding eugenicists are now making me blush.

Awake :::::: Something edible is approaching me.

The secret life of beetlesPeter Kalu

00:00 / 03:51

Length: 230 seconds
Poem: Peter Kalu
Read by: Peter Kalu

Sculpture

There is little information about this beetle online which could have caused issues in finding inspiration for a sculpture. However, the inspiration for this piece came entirely from Peter's poem, the idea of humans trying to think like beetles and the impossibility of that due to the different makeup of our brains/neurons.

Humans have pyramidal neurons, called the "butterflies of the soul" (by Santiago Ramón y Cajal), which control our cognitive processes. Beetles don't have these and have much simpler neurons. The ones I have based my piece on are the most complicated of these and come from the visual system of insects (as drawn by Cajal).

I have mounted these on a picture of what a beetle might see in the ponds they live in, with fly lavae which they eat just visible.

For the background of the human neurons I have used many layers of both colour, shape and text transfers from relevant sources. I wanted it to be busy, but unified and coherent at the same time.

The bronze pieces were cast by routing the designs into MDF sheets and pouring in the molton bronze. A fiery process that gives unpredictable results! I also made my own bronze for these pieces from old copper water pipes, adding Silicon and Manganese.

I used different patination (colouring) on the bronze pieces to further emphasise the differences between them.