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The origin of biodiversity in the Neotropics predominantly stems either from Gondwana breakup or late dispersal events from the Nearctic region. Here, we investigate the biogeography of a diving beetle clade whose distribution encompasses parts of the Oriental region, the Indo‐Australian archipelago (IAA) and the Neotropics. We reconstructed a dated molecular phylogeny, inferred diversification dynamics and estimated ancestral areas under different biogeographic assumptions. For the Oriental region and the IAA, we reveal repeated and complex colonization patterns out of Australia, across the major biogeographic lines in the region (e.g. Wallace's Line). The timing of colonization events across the IAA broadly coincides with the proposed timing of the formation of major geographic features in the region. Our phylogenetic hypothesis recovers Neotropical species nested in two derived clades. We recover an …