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Sticker of Mulsant's water treader
Bug card No. 2938 of 4,939

Mulsant's water treader

Mesovelia mulsanti
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsTrue bugs and cicadasPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

Mulsant's water treader is a tiny bug that walks on top of the water. You can find it on quiet ponds covered with duckweed and green algae. It is only 3 to 4 millimetres long, but it is a real little hunter.

Lives in
From southern Canada to Texas, and in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Hawaii, on still water
Length
3 to 4 mm (0.12 to 0.16 in)
Top speed
about 1 km/h (0.62 mph)
Swimming, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is far too small to hurt people.
What does it eat?
It hunts small insects that land on or fall onto the water. Sometimes it also grabs tiny crabby animals that swim up to the surface.
For real!Photo of Mulsant's water treader
Picture by dos Santos SE, Rodrigues JMS, Couceiro SRM, Moreira FFF (2021) Gerromorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from the Metropolitan Region of Santarém, Brazil, including . CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Mulsant's water treader about 4 mm long (0.16 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould swim the length of a bathtub in 7.2 secondsmoves 69 times its own body length every second

How big is Mulsant's water treader compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

In places with cold winters, only its eggs survive the winter. The grown-ups and young ones cannot live through freezing weather.

2

In Illinois it has three families of babies every year, and sometimes even a fourth one in late autumn.

3

In warm places like Florida and the Caribbean it can have babies all year round.

4

It is happy both in sunny spots and in the shade, as long as the water is calm.

you asked

Most asked questions about Mulsant's water treader

?What does Mulsant's water treader eat?

Small insects on the water surface, and sometimes tiny water animals that come up to the top.

?Where does Mulsant's water treader live?

On still fresh water with lots of floating plants, from Canada down to South America, and also in Hawaii.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Mesovelia mulsanti
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Mesoveliidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Mesoveliidae
Lives on
North America, South America, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Mesovelia mulsanti (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by dos Santos SE, Rodrigues JMS, Couceiro SRM, Moreira FFF (2021) Gerromorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from the Metropolitan Region of Santarém, Brazil, including . CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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