The aquatic water bugs are quite an easy group to work on and it is surprising that more recording has not been done in Suffolk. There are many references to them in the early editions of the Suffolk Naturalists Transactions but almost nothing was published in the next forty years. The British list contains some 68 species of bugs living their lives in or on the water. To date in Suffolk 44 species have been recorded, although another 2 species Hebrus ruficeps and Notonecta obliqua are only known from very old archive records. The first is probably now extinct in the county and N obliqua should be treated as very doubtful. The modern records represent 9 of the 11 families in Britain.
Aquatic Heteroptera
The Water Bugs
General information about aquatic bugs for the amateur naturalist.
Whilst this page gives very general information about aquatic bugs there are several other pages on this site dedicated to the group, please hover over the interactive menu on the left for links to these and all other pages.
Bugs are insects with mouth parts adapted for piercing and
sucking either the body fluids of other creatures or the sap or cell contents of plants.
Aquatic and semi aquatic bugs fill many niches within the freshwater environment and use a
variety of special locomotion and respiration methods.
Many actively predate the water surface or neuston where they feed upon insects trapped by the surface film. Such bugs need water repellant hairs to stay unwetted by the water. Some like the Water measurer, Hydrometra, may simply walk on the film. Others such as Velia can navigate fast flowing mountain streams with surprising speed and ease by strategically placing chemical suffactants and letting the water tension pull them in the right direction.
Other bugs are underwater predators but no British species are truly aquatic, in that they all need to breathe air. This is often accomplished by breathing tubes or water repellant hairs at the end of the abdomen allowing air to pass to openings of the tracheal system whilst the bug hangs from the water surface. Many species also use a virtual or physical gill system, this is a bubble of air that forms due to the presence of water repelling cuticle or hairs on the abdomen. Oxygen requirements are so low that enough carbon dioxide can diffuse out of the bubble and oxygen can diffuse in from the water. An obvious disadvantage of this respiration method is the positive bouyancy induced which means the bug can only stay under water if it holds on to some object.
