My water striders (family Gerridae) have been mating like crazy. Like, for 8 hours one day. I wasn’t there the whole time, but I suppose it’s possible they didn’t even stop. Given our differences in lifespan, that scales (very) roughly to about a solid month for us without getting out of bed (8 hours times 100 strider life spans is 33 days). Only they’re cruising around on top of the water the whole time.

And finally, finally… I gazed at the surface of the water Monday, deep in thought about something else entirely, and I sat up a little straighter and asked myself, “What is that?”

It was a tiny little blip and that blip was moving. Moving like it was hopping. In tiny little hops.

I eventually discovered not one, not two, but four baby water striders in my tank! I imagine they lay more than four eggs at a time (many insects do), so I wonder what happened to the rest of them. Maybe the backswimmers or even their own parents had some easy snacks over the weekend as they hatched. It happens.

In the meantime, I have moved the blips over to their very own kiddie pool, given them some rocks and some sticks and leaves to hide in. It looks much lovelier to me without the murky algae, but maybe they find the clear sterility of the water unpleasant. It would be an interesting hypothesis to test, allowing them to chose between habitats.

What am I doing raising aquatic insects in my hidden underground laboratory? (Besides being creepier than just having a hidden underground lab?) I may have mentioned my research interest once or twice: biodiversity. Specifically, why we have so much of it to start with. I may also have suggested I am currently working on a theoretical research project which has been a real challenge and taught me a lot.  The basic question of it is: does hiding from a predator effect whether two competing species can live together?

I’ll explain more about the framework and the techniques later, but I’m thinking about how to test it in real life, and I am thinking about aquatic insects (after all, they are little, with short life spans, relatively simple neural networks, etc.). I posted already about my field trip with another student to count the backswimmers and water striders in pools on Mount Lemmon, and to collect them (yes, we have a Forest Service permit for both). I have kept a few, just to observe their behavior and formulate intelligent (well, I hope) hypotheses. That’s these guys. And now there are more of them. I’m so proud.