Water Scorpion
Nepa ?
Near Nyeri, Kenya. Dec. 2015.
Water Scorpions are an entirely aquatic family of true bugs and are unrelated to scorpions. The long, slender, tail-like structure is for getting air while the bug is submerged. The first pair of legs are raptorial for holding prey while the beak - piercing-sucking mouthparts like all hemipterans - dispatches it. The prey will include some mosquito larvae. These insects can also fly after unfolding their wings in dry air. The specimen shown here was in a trough used for watering horses.