Macrocritters!

Yesterday I finally had the chance to head off with a net to a nearby slough to collect some more pond critters to photograph. I was specifically looking for either backswimmers (family Notonectidae) or water boatmen (family Corixidae)—and of course I didn’t find any of either. That’s pretty typical; it seems like I rarely find the species I am actually searching for…but I almost always find something of interest to photograph.

At the slough there were a lot of water striders (family Gerridae) dancing around. These are predatory insects that have the interesting ability to run on the surface of water. They are common on ponds and other still bodies of water. There are about 1700 species in the family. It occurred to me that I had never taken any really good pictures of these critters…so I scooped-up a mid-sized specimen and brought it home to play with. In retrospect…