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Belostomatidae is a family of freshwater hemipteran insects known as giant water bugs or colloquially as toe-biters, Indian toe-biters, electric-light bugs (because they fly to lights in large numbers), alligator ticks, or alligator fleas (in Florida). They are the largest insects in the order Hemiptera. [1]
Grylloblattidae, commonly known as the icebugs or ice crawlers, is a family of extremophile (psychrophile) and wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains and the edges of glaciers. It is the only member of Grylloblattodea, which is generally considered an order.
Over 81 million people live permanently at high altitudes (>2,500 m or 8,200 ft) [52] in North, Central and South America, East Africa, and Asia, and have flourished for millennia in the exceptionally high mountains, without any apparent complications. [53] For average human populations, a brief stay at these places can risk mountain sickness. [54]
Bugs of the genus Belostoma prefer lentic habitats with submerged or emergent vegetation and for overwintering the adults fly to ponds and slow-moving waters. During the springtime and the early summer they often fly to electric light-sources, thus they are also called "electric-light-bugs". [6] The life circle contains one generation a year.
Wētā is a loanword, from the Māori-language word wētā, which refers to this whole group of large insects; some types of wētā have a specific Māori name. [2] In New Zealand English, it is spelled either "weta" or "wētā", although the form with macrons is increasingly common in formal writing, as the Māori word weta (without macrons) instead means "filth or excrement". [3]
Some true water bugs (Nepomorpha) may also be fully aquatic for their entire lives, but can leave the water to travel. The nymphs (technically, "naiads") are aquatic and live in the benthic zone of well-oxygenated lakes and streams. A few species found in New Zealand and nearby islands have terrestrial nymphs, but even these inhabit only very ...
Lethocerus sp. with wings open. Unlike giant water bugs in the subfamily Belostomatinae, females do not lay the eggs on the backs of males. [4] Instead, after copulation (often multiple sessions [5]) the eggs are laid on emergent vegetation (rarely on man-made structures) high enough above the waterline that the eggs will not be permanently submerged.
These "typical" bugs (suborder Heteroptera) are commonly called semiaquatic bugs or shore-inhabiting bugs. The Ochteroidea (infraorder Nepomorpha are also found in shore habitat, while the Gerromorpha are actually most often encountered running around on the water surface, being kept from sinking by surface tension and their water-repellent legs.