# Strange green worms found in puddle



## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)

i was at work with my mom today and i was on the phone walking around the front of the barn and there was a puddle of standing water with a muddy bottom and there were beetles in the water along with these nasty looking green worm things with big jaw/pincher on the front. ill try to upload a pic if i can


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## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)




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## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)




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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

dragonfly larvae? 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/139430036/


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cramsay23/432486425/


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## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)

dont think so


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## mammabooh (Sep 1, 2004)

What kind of beetles were in the water?


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## charliesbugs (Feb 25, 2007)

Found this when looking for beetle with pinchers-could this be it? On the site there arecolor pics of the beetle , but I don't know how to get it to this site! hope this may help. Now I'm curious as to what it is ,too. ??????? SOMEBODY will know.


By: Laurel Lynch and Savanna Fink


class: Insecta
order:Coleptera
familyytiscidae
genusytiscus

Introduction 

Predacious {means "predatory"} Diving Beetles are one of the largest groups of aquatic {meaning water-living creatures) beetles of the entire world. The beetles have largish compound eyes{compound eyes are eyes with many lenses.} In Europe about 2,000 different species of Predacious Diving Beetles live. The Beetles are very terrestrial. Predacious Diving Beetles usually live in wetlands and bogs, sloughs and other bodies of water, teeming with life. 

Where Do the Predacious Diving Beetles Live?


Predacious Diving Beetles live in wetlands, sloughs, bogs, or anywhere, that there is a place that is teeming with life, {meaning for food} that they can eat. They can also live in rivers but that is very rare.




How to Identify Predacious Diving Beetles


The male Predacious Diving Beetles have a very smooth exoskeleton {meaning shell} and the females have grooves that are on her exoskeleton. The Predacious Diving Beetleâs hind legâs are covered with small hairs that are also called setae. These help the Predacious Diving Beetles swim when they are in the water. Predacious Diving Beetles are perfectly camouflaged. They are an oval shaped creature. The maleâs color is black and with a tinge of yellow around the outside. The beetles can also be other colors varying to the species. The females are almost all black. That is only one type though. The male Predacious Diving Beetles also have pads on their fore feet, so when they are mating they can grasp onto the female and not slip
off. 


What do the Predacious Diving Beetles eat?


The Predacious Diving Beetle will eat almost anything their little pinchers and jaws can get a hold of! They will eat: mostly different types of insects, some kinds of rotting wood,sometimes they will even eat defecation, and even carcasses. The larger diving beetles can even consume tadpoles or even some small fish! The Predacious Diving Beetle will grab their prey with their pinchers and inject a white chemical that may smell like ammonia, this makes their preyâs insides soft and squishy. They, {meaning the prey} are probably quite dead though. Then they suck out their insides! It sounds gross doesnât it? Well itâs not because they have to eat right? The Predacious Diving Beetle will attack without hesitation. They can also, for their own protection use a very distasteful chemical to keep larger animals away from them {including humans if they feel threatened!} 

What is on the Predacious Diving Beetles? 


The Predacious Diving Beetle has a pretty large head. It has a thorax and an abdomen just as all insects have. It has a delicate wing underneath the eletra. The elytra {uh-lea-truh} is a hard case that covers over the delicate wing. The delicate wing can unfurl, and the beetle can take off and fly! They has six powerful, hairy legs. The front legs have pinchers on them and they use them to catch and kill their prey. The legs also have long hairs covering them and use them like we use fins and flippers. They can swim very quickly, this also helps them catch their prey. They have compound eyes They have hard mouth parts that they use to clamp onto their prey. Their mouthâs are made for cutting and chewing. They have an exoskeleton which is a skeleton that grows on the outside of the beetle. The beetles have compound eyes {com-pound eyes are eyes that have many lenses so they probably see many copies of the same picture.} They also have pretty long antennae{an-ten-ay.}


The Adult Predacious Diving Beetle



Egg Laying and the Larva


When the mother lays her eggs she will lay them one by one. She makes a slit in a water plant with her ovipositor {oae-vi-pause-it-or} meaning her egg laying part. When they are born the larva it is a very ferocious type of larva in fresh water. 


The picture of the larva of the Predacious Diving Beetle







When the Beetles are in the Sloughs


Predacious Diving Beetles usually live in the sloughs They live there in the spring the summer the autumn and they all die in the winter time except the eggs which are layed in water plants probably in autumn. 

Deadman Slough


Deadman Slough is a long winding slough that runs past: University Park Elementary School {our school} Loftus road, Dunlap Ave.,Marcia Ave.,near Birch,Farenkamp Ave.,
Ramola street,Sprucewood,near Rebecca street,Gradelle Ave,near Dead End Alley,near Yokum street, and then it flows into the Mother Slough the huge, Noyes Slough. 



Return to Deadman's Slough Home Page


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## naturelover (Jun 6, 2006)

Green like this? This is a diving beetle larvae. There's more than one kind of diving beetle. What color were the beetles?
http://rxwildlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dytiscus-larva.jpg

.


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