Commonly known as a "water tiger," this four-eyed micro-AT-AT is the larval form of a predaceous diving beetle.
Via for the colorized scanning EM, whence the quote I used for the title; too bad the critter was wrongly identified there. A major tip of the blogging hat to reader "unknown," who found the correct attribution for the image.
It's actually a diving beetle larva : https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/720763/view/diving-beetle-larva-sem
ReplyDeleteWow. Thank you, unknown. I totally revised the post.
Deleteit kind of looks like an AT-AT walker from star wars? or maybe the walkers were modeled after these?
ReplyDeleteI-)
Konrad Lorenz (how seldom do we hear that name today?) said that the bite of a Dytiscus larva is one of the most painful things in the natural world.
ReplyDelete