Water mantis(Ranatra chinensis Mayer)

[Korean Spider]

Water mantis is not a praying mantis, and belong to the group of Heteroptera.

 

[davidbarber1]

How big is that guy?

David

 

[Amelia]

How cool! .

 

[bareass]

what do they eat?
minos, guppies, and other small things?
are they semi aquatic and walk on land too, or just surface to breathe? ... or do they have gills?
INFO INFO!!!!

 

[Ariel24K]

Ranantra chinensis could walk out from water also, but they prefer water

 

[Tleilaxu]

Its a water scorpion, not a water mantis. That probably explains the lack of info...

 

[Bugs In Cyberspace]

These range through North America too and measure about 2-6 inches depending on species and whether you are including legs, posterior breathing tube, etc. My wife found one during the annual Bugguide.net "Gathering"/collecting event in Washington state, a few years back. I kept it and took some interesting video footage of it. Unfortunately I never uploaded it to YouTube. The specimen had some of those red aquatic mites attached to it. While I was filming one of the mites had let go of the waterscorpion and was impressively swimming circles underwater. At one point the waterscorpion caught the mite, and this was interesting in itself. It placed it to its mouth as if to feed, but then let it go causing me to wonder if the mites are not strictly parasitic to the insect.

My parents find them in their pool from time to time, in Mexico.