Backswimmer in wheelbarrow

[Lisa Millbank]

We had filled a wheelbarrow with water for a yard project, and after a few days, Don noticed that a backswimmer was zipping around in the wheelbarrow.  Initially, I thought it was a water boatman, but water boatmen swim dorsal side up, and backswimmers swim on their backs.  They're both in the true bug order, but belong to different families.  Backswimmers are also predatory and can inflict a painful bite (rarely), while water boatmen are herbivorous.

More than a week went by, and we didn't dump out the increasingly murky, algae-filled water because the backswimmer was still in there.  I hoped that it would decide to fly away and find someplace with more food and potential mates.  I guess it was able to eat enough little bugs that fell onto the water's surface that it had no desire to leave its new home.  Last night, we finally evicted the backswimmer so we could have our wheelbarrow back.

I caught the backswimmer in a plastic tub and we walked down to the beaver pond on Village Green Creek to release it.  A photo is attached that shows its oar-like elongated hind legs and the fringes of hair that it uses to swim.  It was already freaking out and swimming around frantically in the tub, so I didn't want to stress it out more by removing it from the water to take photos of the dorsal surface.  I don't know if it's possible to identify the species, but it looks like the genus Notonecta, which includes most of the backswimmers.

Lisa Millbank