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Water scorpion

Nepidae

Photo by patty
Published on Project Noah
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-34.9059, -56.1914

Field Notes

Description:

We were at school and this strange insect appeared on the grass. It is an insect because it has 6 legs but the two front legs look sort of like some sort of pincers. It had two very big eyes which it sort of moved independently from the body and the body was quite big (around 4cm).

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (7)
patty
Ja, ja, thank you for the nice comment Anita! =D
patty
It does seem to have something curled on its back...isn´t it? Maybe it is the tail that it curled; when the children called me they said that someone had been turning the poor bug upside down...maybe a future entomologist! =D
JenKnight
@Smith Zoo - I thought all Nepidans had a "tail", is that incorrect?
Smith Zoo
Some kind of water scorpion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepidae
patty
Found it! Thank you very much Jen! It does look like this one: http://www.google.com.uy/imgres?imgurl=http://tolweb.org/tree/ToLimages/Lethocerus2_mod.250a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tolweb.org/Belostomatidae/10926&h=194&w=259&tbnid=UnbppknESh65CM:&zoom=1&tbnh=150&tbnw=200&usg=__XtIL2iJX9ndtCU6EWF0hD2sGyDY=&docid=6DzJ4wQX7VrJkM&itg=1&client=firefox-a&sa=X&ei=7EsLVOrQH4Sc8QGB8YGoDw&ved=0CI4BEPwdMAo
patty
Thank you very much Jen! =D
JenKnight
This insect is a type of giant water bug! I don't what species are present in Uruguay but here is some general information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belostomatidae
Photographed
PublishedSeptember 6, 2014

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