Water Skaters Mating on the Water アメンボの交尾

The copulating (mounting) couple kicked a rival male away! Mid-May 2008 in Japan.

林道の轍に出来た水たまりで背中におんぶしているペアのアメンボ（種名不詳）がいました。交尾中なのでしょうか。雌雄で体の大きさが違うようです。あぶれた♂が上に乗ろう­と寄って来ますが、カップルに蹴飛ばされました。
追記：アメンボの♂は♀にマウントしたまま交尾後ガードを長期間続けるらしい。この映像も「交尾中」ではない可能性が高い。

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• water
• strider
• skater
• mating
• aquatic
• insect
• アメンボ
• 交尾
• 水の生物
• 水生昆虫

[bmoisset]

Very interesting! I like all those vibrations of the water.

[sigma1920]

thanx!

yeah, their concentric waves are soothing to watch.

as u know, their legs are quite sensitive to water vibrations.

i think their hunting strategy is, in a way, similar to that of spiders.

water skaters do not even need to build their own deadly traps (like spider's webs).

smart guys.

[sigma1920]

wow!

thx a lot for the info about the exciting discovery.

now i have checked out the entry of wikipedia for the interesting details.

i did not know the recent advance on the subject.

[sigma1920]

ok.

[afflicteddesire]

Try it and lemme know if they bite lol.

[afflicteddesire]

They thought it was wax/water tension but Xuefeng Gao and Lei Jiang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found it is near microscopic hair on their legs that captures air bubbles that keeps them up ^_^

[sigma1920]

yeah, the magic of surface tension.

simply amazing.

btw, the background birdcall was made by a japanese bush warbler (aka japanese nightingale; Cettia diphone).

[beebutterfly09]

See how light they are to swim on water :)

[sigma1920]

it's all right (they are harmless to humans).

just leave them alone! :D

btw, they are said to smell like candies when caught in our hands (i have never tried that yet).

hence water skaters are called in japanese as "amembo", which means "candy bugs".

thx for watching!

[afflicteddesire]

These bugs always creeped me out and I could never (by hand) catch them!