Immature Giant Water Bug

bugman

August 9th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

Categories

Green Water Beetle?
August 9, 2009
Every year at my cottage me and my friends put together a small aquarium of insects and other animals that we find in our lake. This year we were surprised to catch something none of us had ever seen before. We thought at first that it was a baby Giant Water Beetle, but later on in the trip we caught another one identical to the first in an entirely different part of the lake. This lead us to believe that it was probably something different. I took some pretty good pictures of them before they were released and I was hoping you might be able to help us figure out what they were.
Max
Southern Ontario

Immature Giant Water Bug with Mite

Dear Max,
This is a Giant Water Bug in the genus Belostoma, and it is an immature specimen. Mature specimens have wings and can fly. Most Giant Water Bug images we receive are the much larger members of the genus Lethocerus. Your one image shows an orange speck on the right hind leg that appears to be a mite.