I was working on the getting the pool ready and found this bug floating on the surface. It is a water scorpion and they seems to be fairly common in eastern Ontario. I have probably seen half dozen of them around the place over the years. However, I have rarely seen them alive. This is the first time I have seen them in our pool and in this case it was probably the chlorine that killed him.
The water scorpion according to Wikipedia is fairly widespread. This one is a member of the genus Nepa.
There are 14 genera in the family, in two subfamilies, Nepinae and Ranatrinae, and they can be found on all continents except Antarctica. Members of the genus Ranatra, the most widespread and speciose genus, are sometimes called needle bugs or water stick insects as they are more slender than Nepa and feed primarily on invertebrates, but occasionally take small fish or tadpoles. 1
I am thankful he was dead. I understand the bite they can inflict is quite painful.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scorpion ↩