American Giant Water Bug

• Its defensive bite is among the most painful any aquatic insect can inflict, and in North America it is popularly known as the toe-biter.
• The female glues the eggs to stems standing above the water and it is the male who guards them and periodically wets them so that they do not dry out before hatching.
• It flies between ponds at night and comes to lights in numbers, which has also earned it the name of electric light bug.
• It is one of the largest aquatic insects in the world and a fearsome predator: it hunts tadpoles, fish, newts and even small snakes — prey far larger than itself.
• It does not chew: it seizes its prey with its raptorial front legs, injects digestive enzymes and paralysing saliva through its rostrum, and sucks out the liquefied contents.
• Its defensive bite is among the most painful in the insect world — hence its English name of toe-biter.
• The male carries the eggs. In its genus the female lays them on emergent vegetation and the male guards and moistens them, but in the related genera the female glues them directly onto the male's back, and he carries them until they hatch.
• It flies at night and is drawn to artificial light, which is why it turns up in swimming pools and around street lamps; hence its other name, the electric-light bug.
• In several countries of South-East Asia the species of the genus are eaten fried and are a prized delicacy.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Ponds, lagoons and vegetated backwaters of North America

Size at birth

The nymphs are wingless copies of the adult; sibling cannibalism does not appear until some 72 hours after hatching, by which time they have dispersed from the natal substrate

Sexual maturity

The male provides exclusive paternal care: he stays submerged at the base of the support and rises periodically to rub his body against the egg mass to moisten it, supply oxygen and keep fungus from taking hold. The female alternates feeding and copulation

Gestation / incubation

The eggs incubate for 10 to 14 days; development after laying is completed in one or two months through five nymphal instars, with no pupal stage

Litter / clutch size

Clutches of about 100 eggs glued in double vertical rows onto stems, sticks and emergent vegetation above the waterline; the female lays about 150 or more over her lifetime

Sources consulted: Smith (1997), trabajos sobre cuidado paterno en Belostomatidae · Universidad de Florida, Featured Creatures · Schmidt, The Sting of the Wild · Ficha de especie de Lethocerus americanus · iNaturalist · Ficha de especie de Lethocerus americanus (Grokipedia, sintesis de Hoffman 1924) · Texas Master Gardeners · Journal of Insect Behavior, cuidado paterno en Lethocerus

Best time: The adults fly at night, mainly in spring and autumn when moving between ponds, and are strongly drawn to lights: hence the popular name electric light bug

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.