I’ve been super busy with work recently and haven’t had time to put together one of my normal, long-ish blog posts.  But, I wanted to get SOMETHING up this week!  This will be short on words, but hopefully big on the wow value.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post on giant water bugs eating and included a video of the medium sized species we have in Arizona (Abedus herberti) eating a mealworm that I gave it.  That post details how giant water bugs eat, so I recommend that you check it out for more detailed information on what you’ll see here.  Abedus herberti isn’t nearly as big as another Arizona native, Lethocerus medius, and while it’s mode of eating is still impressive, it’s nothing compared to what L. medius can do.  Species in the genus Lethocerus are the largest true bugs on the planet and are real powerhouses when it comes to taking down vertebrate prey.  These bugs are big, so they can eat really big things like snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, and birds.  So, in my insect behavior class we fed a goldfish to the Lethocerus medius we’d been experimenting with all semester, a goldfish that was about the same length and likely much heavier than the bug.  The bug hadn’t eaten for over a week to prepare it for the goldfish demonstration.  This was the result:

Now if that isn’t the coolest thing ever, I don’t know what is!  This right here should be enough to convince anyone that giant water bugs are the best insects one Earth.  (Okay, okay – so I’m a little biased!)  Now normally this bug would just sit in one spot and wait for food to swim by (they’re called sit and wait predators for a reason), but not this one.  He was so hungry he actually hunted down and captured his food before eating it.

Next up will be my one-year anniversary post.  I can’t believe I’ve been at this for a year already!  This calls for a celebration.  I might even give something away as a reward for sticking with me this long…

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