Water Bugs

 Happy New Year, Bug Fans!

I am still on hiatus as far as doing bug walks goes, which means no pictures, which means no posts, unless I actually happen to get a picture without going out with my camera, intentionally searching for bugs. Which is what happened tonight when I was doing my forest walk after dark. I got a new flashlight for Christmas, and it is very powerful, which means it actually gives off enough light to take a picture with my phone. So when I came to the pool by frog rock in the stream tonight, and by the light of my flashlight saw several predaceous diving beetles, I was finally able to get pictures of them.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Predaceous diving beetle. The water in the stream is amazingly clear–this is a picture of a beetle underwater.

Obviously the water in the stream is not frozen, but it must be very cold. When I left for my walk the temperature had dropped to about 34ºF, and it was a little bit colder when I got back. The temperature last night was in the 20s, and it was in the 40s during the day today. But I have been able to spot these on a lot of night walks that were around the freezing mark (for some reason, unlike during the warmer months, I have only been seeing these at night). Flowing water will stay unfrozen longer than still water when the temperature drops, but when the water gets to 32ºF, it will freeze. I wonder, though how cold is too cold for the beetles? I also wonder where they went when the stream froze up during the drought (which seems to have ended)–did they bury themselves in the mud and wait for water to come back, or did they fly somewhere else and come back when the water came back? It's interesting that a beetle that hangs out underwater can even fly.

I may not be doing my bug walks lately, but I am always happy to find bugs on my walks.