The Water cricket

THE Water cricket IS A ROBUST SURFACE BUG: IT RUNS ON RAPID STREAMING WATER, SOMETIMES IN MIDWINTER. Water striders are also able to walk on streaming water, some species even prefer this, but the Water cricket can handle faster flowing streams. Nevertheless, this bug also keeps to the calmer bends, where it gets too wild, even this species leaves. They often sit hidden in the vegetation along the bank and then seem to disappear from one day to the next. On the stream they stand in groups on the current like dark spiders, with short rowing movements surprisingly able to hold their ground on the fast water. Every now and then one even dives under water, the Water cricket is the only surface bug that can to do this. They can also crawl along a water plant to a submerged position. Surrounded by a bubble of air they can stay under for a while. Let's have a closer look at the Water cricket with the pictures on this page, that were all made in the "Sprengendal" (Spring valley) near Ootmarsum, in the Netherlands. On the right: four Water crickets on a stream. If you look closely, you can see that the middle legs are held up like a pair of oars. The front and hind legs are sharply bent backward, the feet like sled irons longitudinal with the body. In this way they have the lowest resistance to the rapid flowing water, they are a bit like skaters who stand still while the ice moves fast under them. The middle legs only touch the surface for short rowing motions (see also the smaller pictures below left). In sufficient light the Water cricket is beautifully marked with white spots on black and a pair of red seams that have pointed ends. Most specimen are wingless, sometimes an individual with wings appears. There are no half winged specimens known. In Europe there is Velia caprai, older name: Velia currens. Further there is Velia saulii which looks very much like the other species.
Water crickets feed on insects that have fallen on the water. They can steal on these by ejecting a fluid that spreads quickly over the water surface like camphour and so gives the Water cricket a "silent running". Water-crickets make no sound, they bare the name just because of their visual resemblance with crickets. Some Lesser Waterboatman species can make sound however, and for this sometimes confusingly also are called "water crickets".

Like all true bugs, Velia has partial metamorphosis. The young bugs (nymphs) resemble the adult. In spring the nymphs crawl out of the eggs and after five instars, they have become imagos. There is one generation in a year. Below are two pictures of Velia nymphs. (I mistakenly showed these for years as nymphs of Microvelia).