The Pondweed bug

THIS IS THE LEAST KNOWN SURFACE BUG. ONLY FEW PEOPLE HAVE EVER SEEN ONE RUNNING ALONG THE EDGE OF A LAKE OR POND. I only found it because I knew what I might find and so, while laying almost nose on the water, spotted this 3 millimeter large dot, running on the water along the edge of a recreation lake. Because of their tiny size and the fact that hey are much less abundant then Microvelia, these bugs go unnoticed. It is quite possible that they occur much more often than they are seen. Even the great expert Wesenberg Lund, had to be pointed out to the Mesovelias in his area by a colleague, he himself initially thought they were nymphs of other bugspecies. Pondweed bugs can be recognised by their greenish colour and the body shape: they are slimmer then the round Microvelias. Maybe they are green because they prefer to rest on floating leaves, for example those of pondweed. The colour isn't always clearly visible due to the strong shine.
The scientific name means: "middle Velia", probably meaning this tiny bug is sized between Microvelia and Velia, the Water cricket. Mesovelia however, is placed in its own family, the Mesovelidae. But Mesovelia does have the typical backward bended legs of the Veliidae family. They can run surprisingly fast with it and sometimes even shoot forward with a jump.. But usually they sit still on a leaf edge or stem, or walk calmly over the water. The legs are moved alternately, something like this: the left front leg goes forward at the same time as the left back leg, then the left middle leg goes forward, while the right front leg and right hind leg also go. Pondweed bugs have the same sharp sucking beak (proboscis) other surface bugs have, it is stabbed in small insects that fell on the water, which are then sucked out. Mostly you find wingless (a-pterous) Mesovelia specimen, but now and then there are fully winged (macro-pterous)specimen that are able to fly and spread the species to new waters. The eggs (a mere 100) are inserted in plants. They sink to the bottom and in spring the tiny nymphs hatch.

The nymphs already look a lot like the adults and are adults after five stages. Because of their small size a raised margin of water (meniscus) against a plant stem is a high, slippery slope to them, comparable to an icy ski slope for us. They have developed a special technique to slide upwards(!) against it. They achieve this by pulling the water surface with their front and after legs in stead of pushing it down. The forces that are created in this way carry them upwards. I read a very interesting article with photo's, drawings and movies on this subject, unfortunately the link has died. At the end of the year all nymph have turned into adults. Some researchers say there are two generations each year, according to others one..