Shiny Olive-green 3-inch…Beetle?
July 23, 2009
I did not kill this bug!! He was lying on our bumper when we got out of our car at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn, New York (right by the water on Coney Island). We had driven up from the Washington, DC, area that day and I’m not sure how long he was on board. He was about three inches long and a shiny olive color. If you could just get me started I’m sure I could find him, but all my searches turn up metallic looking bugs, which he was not. Thanks you!!
Hawke
Brooklyn, NY, USA
Giant Black Water Beetle
Hi Hawke,
This is some species of Water Beetle, either a Water Scavenger in the family Hydrophilidae, or a Predaceous Diving Beetle in the family Dytiscidae. According to BugGuide: “Water scavengers have keeled sternum, come up for air head first. Diving beetles have unkeeled sternum, come up for air tail first.” We are inclined to ID this as the Water Scavenger, Hydrophilus triangularis, which BugGuide describes as: “Large, shiny black with olive tinge. Underside with prominent spine (prosternal process). Similar to the usually smaller H. (Dibolocelus) ovatus. H. triangluaris is more oblong, H. ovatus more oval. H. ovatus is more common southward.” The common name is the Giant Black Water Beetle.
Confirmation from Eric Eaton
Daniel:
The giant black water beetle is indeed Hydrophilus triangularis.
Eric
Found this picture http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/5301/ which sure looks like him.
Thanks! I was stumped.
My husband says he saved him to put by the computer… if he is intact I’ll try to take a better picture. He was quite an impressive creature and I didn’t see any others on What’s That Bug.
Thanks!
Hawke
What is this? It looks like a cross between a roach, a moth, and a scorpion
July 22, 2009
Hi, in all my 29 years in Florida I have never seen a bug like this. We live in a wooded area with cypress and marsh behind us. I walked out of my house this morning to find this bug on the porch. I’d be so grateful if you could identify it. I left it alone and this afternoon it was gone.
Bugged out.
Florida
Toe-Biter
Dear Bugged Out,
This is one of the most beautiful images of a Toe-Biter, or Electric Light Bug, or Giant Water Bug we have ever seen. We have numerous letters with numerous photos and lots of information already posted on our website regarding this amazing insect.
Huge bug in Florida
July 21, 2009
We found this huge bug with wings and large jaws in our pool. It was almost four inches long. I carefully scooped it out of the pool and placed it in the grass, only to have my crazy weiner dog take a huge bite out of it! We felt really horrible being that the bug was so unique! What kind of bug is this?
Bug lovers in Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Toe-Biter
Dear Bug Lovers,
This is a Giant Water Bug, commonly called a Toe-Biter. They are not aggressive towards humans, but they will deliver a painful bite if handled carelessly. Toe-Biters are aggressive predators, and no small water creature is safe, be it fish, tadpole or insect. In Thailand, Giant Water Bugs are eaten as a delicacy, and we are quite certain your pet found it to be quite toothsome. Giant Water Bugs are not rare. They actually are among our most frequent identification requests, along with House Centipedes, Potato Bugs, Boxelder Bugs and Pseudoscorpions.
Large Aquatic Bug (?) Found in the Ozarks, Does NOT Appear to be a Toe Biter
July 18, 2009
The picture that I have included is horrible, but it was gone so quickly we couldn’t snap a good picture, however, the outline is there. It was a large aquatic insect about 2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Round body shape. Posterior is actually scalloped, blurred in picture. There small head with two short stubby protrusions. From what we could tell there were two very long arms that It could grab and swim with. (It held on to the tip of my fishing pole with these two arms. In the picture they are seen at it’s sides) It was a light brown color with some slight pattern on it’s back. It was found in about 3 foot of water in a slow moving section of a creek near Branson, Missouri. It was very round and from what I can tell from giant water bugs, they are much m ore oval or elliptical in shape. Hope this is helpful, I am very interested in knowing what this neat little guy is!
Thank you, Jamie
Ozarks Missouri, Bull Creek, arm of Table Rock Lake
Dragonhunter Naiad
Dear Jamie,
Though your photo is sorely lacking in the type of details that generally make an identification possible, the outline of the Naiad of the Dragonhunter, Hagenius brevistylus, a type of Dragonfly, is quite distinctive. We feel confident that you have seen a Dragonhunter Naiad and you can see a detailed photo on BugGuide.
green bug from aquarium
June 3, 2009
found this bug swimming in my aquarium (oteh residents are pimelodus pictus (4), Chromobotia macracanthus (3), Ancistrus dolichopterus (2). i’m feeding my fish with sera mix chips and live bloodworms larve. it’s app. 1 inch in lenght, swimming by moving it’s body left and right.
help
Ljubljana, Slovenia, Europe
Damselfly Naiad
Dear In need of Help,
This is a Damselfly Naiad, the larval form of a winged insect similar to a Dragonfly. Damselfly Naiads are predators, but they cannot handle adult fish. Hatchlings and small fry might get eaten. We suspect this Damselfly Naiad was introduced with the live Bloodworms. We have been feeding our Angelfish live Mosquito Larvae we catch in the birdbath and in various places we keep water in the yard. We suspect we have introduced a predator that ate some of our fry.
What’s ON that bug? Ranatra w/ orange bumps
Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 3:12 PM
I recently tracked down the ID of this odd insect in a local pond as a Water Scorpion (Ranatra spp.), but all of the individuals I’ve seen so far are covered in strange, orange bumps that do not appear to be “normal” or common. Do you have any idea what these might be caused by? The pond is next to the building I work in and appears to be the result of dam work by the local beaver’s union. There is plenty of food for these guys with damsel flies, tadpoles in the thousands and other small, crunchy things. The other wildlife in the area does not appear to be suffering from any apparent disease or sicknesses and the vegetation around the pond appears to be thriving.
Eric Snyder
Issaquah, WA 98027
Water Scorpion with Phoretic Mites
Hi Eric,
Congratulations on identifying the Water Scorpion in the genus Ranatra. That is not an easy identification. The orange bumps are Aquatic Mites. The Aquatic Mites often use flying aquatic insects to get from one body of water to another, a behavior known a phoresy. Some time back when we posted an image of a ToeBiter with mites, we got this comment from a reader.
Previous Comment on similar posting: Mites on the toe-biter?
Hi Daniel and Lisa Anne,
About the email on the Toe Biter from Tom on (01/27/2007) who talks about having 12 red mites on his Toe Biter? I remember seeing mites on aquatic insects, looking suspicious, and so I looked it up, and it turns out that *all* of the more than 5,000 known species of aquatic mites (Hydracarina) are partly parasitic. When they are larvae, aquatic mites are parasitic on aquatic insects, but as adults the mites become free-swimming and predatory. Winged aquatic insects, such as the toe biters, fly around of course, and that way the mites are spread from one body of water to another. You can read a lot more interesting stuff about them at:
http://www.tolweb.org/Parasitengona
And at :
http://www.tolweb.org/Hydracarina
Best to you as always,
Susan J. Hewitt
Water Bug from Mendocino
Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Hi WTB. I am easily freaked out by bugs but have a strange obsession with your site, as I came across it trying to identify a beetle. I live in Mendocino and was excited to see that you came here, I even joked to my boyfriend I was going to track you down and make you look at my pictures! Anyway the bug I want identified today was found in the Noyo River last week. I’ve posted two different pictures- It seemed to me it was the same bug, but at different stages in it’s life…? The first pic. is when we put it on land. It was narrow at the butt, wider at the head, with a big whole that it “went into” when it was bugged with. They both had little stones all over their body. The second picture looked the same, but it had things shooting from its backside. It loo ked like its defense would be to look like some kind of tree fallings. They were found in shallow water on the rocks and once we started looking for them they were everywhere!
P.S. I see easily 25 banana slugs a day if you decide that you would in fact like a pic. of one!
katebell
Northern California- on the Coast
Caddisfly Larva
Dear katebell,
These are Caddisfly Larvae. Caddisflies are in the order Trichoptera. Caddisfly Larvae create homes for themselves by cementing stones, twigs, shells and other debris. The larvae are called Caseworms. According to Charles Hogue in Insects of the Los Angeles Basin: “The shape and method of construction of the case is characteristic for a species or group of species, and the variety in these ‘mobile homes’ is extensive: they may be purse-shaped, tubular, curved, snail-shaped, or rectangular, and there are even types with sticks set in an ascending square framework that mimics a little log cabin.” There is a picture in Hogue’s book that looks very similar to your examples and it is listed as being in the genus Hesperophylax. We were in the Mendocino Woodlands campground near Fort Bragg and we are sad you did not try to find us. We would love a Banana Slug image. Please title the letter Banana Slug.
Caddisfly Larva
Surprised while on a tadpole rescue!
Wed, May 20, 2009 at 3:35 PM
My children, husband and I are avid nature lovers. One May night at the local ballpark my children showed my husband a drying up “creek” bed with hundreds of tadpoles and frog eggs in it. My daughter and I had already been performing tadpole rescue on a water catch next to our drvieway that day. Needless to say the next day the kids and I went to rescue those tadpoles. While driving my son said the worm in his container was freaking him out. I thought he was talking about the tadpoles. When I began pouring them into their new home this worm took off chewing through the eggs. I quickly scooped it out. We watched it and noticed that it has six legs, large pincers, and appears to breathe through an orifice in its tail. I thought it might be a juvenile dragonfly, I checked your site (which we use frequently) and have found noth ing like it. Thanks for your help.
Jodie
Atlanta, TX
Water Tiger
Dear Jodie,
It was in our budding fascination with aquaria in our youth that we first heard the name Water Tiger to describe the larvae of the Predacious Water Beetles in the genus Dytiscus, though according to BugGuide, Predacious Water Beetle and Water Tiger apply to the entire family Dytiscidae. Here is what William T. Innes wrote in 1935 in Exotic Aquarium Fishes: “Water Tiger This sleek, spindle-shaped creature is the larval form of a large Water Beetle (Dytiscus), which itself is also a powerful enemy of fishes. There are several species, but in effect, as far as the aquarist is concerned, they are all one. … The pincers, or mandibles, are hollow, and through these they rapidly suck the blood of their victims. Growth is rapid and they soon attain a size where they attack tadpoles, fishes or any living thing into which they can bury their strong bloodsuckers. Theirs is one of those appetites which ‘grows by what it feeds upon,’ and they move steadily from victim to victim. … What helps make these larvae so deadly is that they are good swimmers. … The Water Tiger breathes air through its rear end and, therefore, must occasionally come to the surface.”
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