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 & environment

Ponds, lagoons and vegetated backwaters of North America

Sources consulted: Smith (1997), trabajos sobre cuidado paterno en Belostomatidae; Universidad de Florida, Featured Creatures; Schmidt, The Sting of the Wild