What Do Baby Water Bugs Look Like?
Water bugs are insects belonging to the order of true bugs (hemiptera). They do not give birth to live babies, as mammals do, but lay eggs from which the young, called "nymphs", hatch to undergo a process called metamorphosis.
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True Bug Nymphs
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In her book "True Bugs", Sara Swan Miller describes the metamorphosis of all true bugs, to which water bugs belong. "When young true bugs hatch from their eggs, they look just like their parents, except they are smaller and have no wings. As they grow, true bugs shed their old, skin-like outer layer. This layer, which is called an exoskeleton, is replaced by a larger one. A bug's wings get bigger each time it sheds."
Insect Characteristics
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Water bugs are insects and, like all insect nymphs, water bug nymphs have three major body parts, the head, thorax and abdomen. A pair of antennae and the eyes are attached to the head. Insects may have two kinds of eyes: simple eyes,"ocelli", which only see light, and compound eyes, which see multiple images. Water bugs, as a rule, have hardly visible antennae and ocelli; these structures may not be visible at all on the nymphys.
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True Bug Characteristics
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True water bugs are considered an infraorder in the true bug family because they share common characteristics with them. All true bugs, and thus all water bugs and their nymphs, have a beak with sucking mouth parts, which is attached to the front of the head. Most adult true bugs have wings which are not present in the newly-hatched nymphs. They only emerge during five subsequent moltings and grow bigger each time.
True Water Bug Families
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The true water bugs are subdivided into families including the giant water bugs, the backswimmers, the water boatmen, the water scorpions and the water striders. The members of each of these families of water bugs look very different, as do their offspring. Descriptions of the giant water bug family and the backswimmer family will illustrate the eccentricity of water bug shapes. In both cases, the nymphs look just like their parents, but without wings.
Giant Water Bugs and Backswimmers
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Blake Newton, of the University of Kentucky, describes the giant water bug: "Resembling a cross between a cockroach and a praying mantis, giant water bugs are brown, flat with large, raptorial front legs." According to Lorus and Margery Milne, backswimmers "...are elongate, torpedo-shaped bugs ...which swim in a jerky, erratic manner, using extended hair-fringed hind legs as oars...Their coloration provides protective camouflage while they swim on their backs--wings and backs are pale, the undersides are dark."
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- Photo Credit Beetle in the water image by Rose from Fotolia.com
