Yellow Backswimmer
S4, ventral
Large Backswimmer
S2, dorsal
| Yellow Backswimmer S4, ventral | | Large Backswimmer S2, dorsal | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | True Bugs (Hemiptera) | ||||
| Family: | Backswimmer (Nepomorpha: Notonectidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Large Backswimmer (Anisops stali) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S1, dorsal🔎 | ||||
Thank you Dr Matthew Pintar for identifying this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere 1st Live Photo on-line: 1st Photo on Atlas: ~10 -> ~12mm long. We think the black tick marks on the pronotums are damage. There was a lot of pitter-patter on our nearly flat colourbond roof. Sounded like the start of rain, but kept going, with no rain. Got the ladder out and picked up 5 species of water-related insects hopping around within a few minutes. It's like they interpret our roof as a lake, so drop in from rain clouds looking to breed; only to find no water. Matthew said "By far the largest species in Australia". In relation to be attracted to the roof, Matthew also said "Yes, they can be attracted to the polarization of light off of flat shiny surfaces when they fly at night". Interestingly we noted they were mainly on the newly attached (shiny) shed roof, not the 7 year old house roof, which has dulled. | |||||
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