During the trip to Bouton lake, I brought a set of waders with me and used them to dig arouns the edges of the lake. Eventually I found a spot that had a very abundant amount of waterscorpions. These insects belong to the family Nepidae of the true insects Hemiptera. Though these particular species are considered to be water stick insects, waterscorpions are a much more cool name to go by.
Every specimen I swept up was floating just below the surface of the water. I wound up collecting 7 of these that I plan on using for trading with other classmates.
These insects are predatory possessing a beak used to inject enzymes into prey to digest the food an then suck it up. Their front legs are very long, slender and strong which makes grasping their prey much easier. In the area I found these insects there was a large number of minnows and tadpoles which would make sense. This is likely the primary food source of these insects in the lake. Despite not being the Luna moth I was elated to have collected, these insects do look very cool. True to their common name, they do resemble aquatic walking sticks. The extensions on the posterior end of the abdomen are used as breathing tubes as well which explains the lack of gills. Once I collected these I tossed them into ethanol where I left them until I pinned them in my Schmidt box. All of the specimens came out perfect except for one I let a friend pin for me.
These seem to not be very common in waters surrounding College Station so they should prove to be handy in trading with classmates.
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