Peppered backswimmer
The peppered backswimmer is a water bug that swims upside down, lying on its back. It is light brown with dark speckles and has big reddish eyes. Its long back legs are shaped like oars, and it rows through the water with them.
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Fun facts
When it hunts, it picks the biggest water fleas it can find.
It can fly. If fish or other big hunters show up, it flies away to a different pond.
Its front wings are mottled and brick-coloured, which helps tell it apart from its cousins.
In the dark it only spots prey that is close by, so it grabs the biggest one nearby.
It grows up to about 2 centimetres long.
Most asked questions about Peppered backswimmer
?What does the peppered backswimmer eat?
Water fleas, tiny water animals, mosquito eggs and almost anything else it can catch.
?How big is the peppered backswimmer?
It grows up to about 2 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Notonecta maculata
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Notonectidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Notonectidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Notonecta maculata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 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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