The narrow-foot hygrotus diving beetle has been found in approximately 12 pools in east-central Wyoming. The type locality and most collection sites are from small intermittent streams, with disconnected pools and highly mineralized water, as documented by researchers with Professional Entomological Services Technology in 1995, and later confirmed by Miller in 2002, as cited by K.M. Swanson in 2012.

The narrow-foot hygrotus diving beetles are excellent hunters and eat larval mosquitos, midges, as documented by C.E. Bofill and D.A. Yee in 2019. It is assumed that these beetles eat whatever invertebrate aquatic prey are available within the pools where they reside. In 1993, Mead also documented that they eat ostracods and disabled amphipods. Adults of this species also eat larval and adult forms of mayflies, midges and other insects, as was noted in a Science Daily interview in 2018. Adults also eat very small live food items too, like small ostracods, disabled amphipods. Mead also made observations of cannibalism of related species in the laboratory environment in 1993.

The narrow-foot hygrotus diving beetle is an aquatic predaceous beetle, with adults being the only life stage capable of actively moving from one habitat to the next via flight. In 1993, D.L. Mead observed that other species of Hygrotus exhibit synchronous mating, where adults meet at suitable breeding sites, most likely over pools, to mate. When new adults emerge in early summer, they can stay in their natal habitat or fly to another pool nearby to feed before overwintering either in permanent water, leaf litter or muck nearby, as documented by K.M. Swanson in 2012. Other Dytiscid beetles exhibit a low density tolerance, where adults will fly to a different pool if the density of beetles is too high, presumably due to draw-down or drying up of the habitat and a limited food supply, as documented by D.A. Yee and others in 2009. 

The narrow-foot hygrotus diving beetle is moderately large (about 4.5 mm in length), oval in shape and the dorsal side is pale yellow and ventral side is black, as described by K.B. Miller in 2002. These beetles are within the H. pedalis-group based on characteristics of adult male genitalia and modifications of the forelegs and midlegs of males, with the aedeagus in pedalis group species being very thin and ligulate in the apical fourth and has a blunt tip. All other Nearctic Hygrotus have a pointed-tipped aedeagus. The profemora, mesofemora and mesotibia of males in pedalis group species are modified, with the most noticeable modification being a notch or very distinct depression in the apical third of the profemora. With the exception of H. femoratus (Fall), all other non-pedalis group species lack modifications of the forelegs and midlegs, as noted by R.D. Anderson in 1971 and later in 1983. D.L. Mead later noted, in 1993, that retained the pedalis group in his revision as Group IV.

This species is holometabolous, meaning that they go through three life stages after hatching: larvae, pupae and adult. These images are of other Coleopteran species with similar life stages. However, D.L. Mead noted that, “generalizations about a tribe, or even a particular genus, rarely hold true for all members of that group. Each species appears to have evolved a unique life strategy for dealing with the conditions presented to it by its particular biotic and abiotic environment." A study reviewing insects in temporary aquatic systems found multiple life history processes and mechanisms for avoiding desiccation, including diapausing eggs, burrowing into substrates as larvae, developing rapidly, going into anhydrobiosis, meaning suspended metabolism due to loss of water, and ovipositing eggs strategically, as documented by L.J. Gray in 1981.

Most Hygrotus beetles are thought to live one year, also known as univoltine, with adults overwintering and mating the following spring and early summer, as noted by D.L. Mead in 1993. A related species, the curved-foot hygrotus diving beetle (H. curvipes) is univoltine with a synchronous mating strategy. This species has two peaks in adult abundance: early spring when beetles congregate at temporary pools and females oviposit and another in late spring when new adults emerge. The low adult abundance between these peaks was offset by abundant larvae, where the immature life stages were completed quickly, taking only between five and seven weeks to go from egg to adult. H. curvipes shares some habitat utilization traits with H. diversipes for completing its life cycle, like preferring shallow alkaline pools with 8.1 to 9.0 pH and 6k to 7,999 uS/cm specific conductance during winter and spring months, and possibly migrating to nearby permanent water in dry months, as documented by D.L. Mead in 1993.