The predaceous diving beetles in the genus Thermonectus are some of the most elegant swimmers I’ve ever seen. They paddle around serenely in open pooled areas of desert streams and you can look down into the water and see dozens of them calmly swimming about at all depths. They accomplish their smooth, beautiful swimming because they are completely smooth and slippery and water just slides right over them. But they also have enormous, oar-like hind legs, easily visible in this photo:
Thermonectus marmoratus
Wish I could swim as gracefully as these beetles do. Apparently I need to grow some different legs!
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The Dragonfly Woman 
Humans, no matter what aquatic ape believers tell us, are simply not built for swimming with any elegance at all.
I heartily agree! I’m also very fond of otters because they are amazing swimmers. I’m so jealous of their abilities! Me, I almost drowned when I was 10. That was far from graceful…
Whatever did you do that for? : – )
That definitely wasn’t by choice! Nor would I like to repeat the experience. My advice: don’t go swimming in lakes with people who don’t know how to swim so there’s no chance of their pulling you under. In spite of the fact that I love water and work in and around it, I have am actually quite scared of drowning and am overly cautious as a result. Water kinda scares me…
Thank you so much for this blog! I am trying to learn about the aquatic macro invertebrates now. Mainly for fishing purposes but I love the naturalist points of view.
I’m so glad you’re getting something from my blog! And you know, a lot of research and knowledge of aquatic insects is actually driven by fishermen. I say that if your fishing means you’re learning something about aquatics then I’m all for it! I’ve done quite a bit of fishing myself (not so much recently unfortunately). I love it! These days I can’t help poking around in the water while I’m fishing though, so I don’t catch much of anything because I scare off all the fish… :)