THE GIANT WATER BUGS 



(Family Belostomatidce.) 



The remarkable insects of this family have long attracted 

 attention. They include the largest of living bugs, are strictly 

 aquatic in their early stages and are predatory in habits, living at 

 the bottom of ponds and feeding upon other aquatic animals in- 

 cluding fish. Their fore legs are fitted for grasping their prey 

 and their hind legs for swimming. When full grown, however, 

 their wings are developed and they fly strongly and for great dis- 

 tances. They have been found in the midst of great cities far 

 from ponds and are attracted to electric lights on the tops of high 

 buildings. So attractive are electric lights to these great bugs 

 that they congregate about them in extraordinary numbers and 

 thousands of them which have fallen to the ground beneath such 

 lights are crushed beneath the feet of passers by. They have in 

 fact become generally known as "electric light bugs." While 

 such hosts of them are destroyed in this way, their numbers do 

 •not seem to be reduced, but it is bad policy to have electric 

 lights near fish breeding establishments or artificial fish ponds. 

 The fish ponds in Washington, since the advent of the electric 

 light have become so greatly stocked with these bugs that they are 

 a serious detriment in fish raising. The two most abundant and 

 the largest of our native species are Belostoma americanum Leidy 

 and Benacus griseus Say. Both are very large, flat, grayish or 

 brownish bugs and were long confused. The Belostoma has a 

 double groove on the underside of its fore thighs which is lacking 

 on the thighs of the Benacus. The eggs are large and spherical 

 and are attached to the stems of water plants or to some other 

 convenient object. Of Benacus griseus Uhler says: "It is the 

 facile master of the ponds and estuaries of the tidal creeks and 

 •rivers of the Atlantic States. Developing in the quiet pools, se- 

 creting itself beneath stones or rubbish, it watches the approach 

 of a Pomotis, mud-minnow, frog or other small-sized tenant of 



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