Ranatra linearis

Stick bug ( Ranatra linearis )

The stick bug or water needle ( Ranatra linearis ) is a bug from the family of scorpion bugs ( Nepidae ). It is next to the water scorpion ( Nepa cinerea ) is the only representative of the family in Central Europe.

Features

The bugs reach without her about 20 millimeters long breathing tube a body length of 30 to 35 millimeters. Your body is very delicate in contrast to the water scorpion. Your yellowish- brown body is very slim, they have long thin legs and the forward-facing fishing legs are as thin. You can swim awarded by swimming hairs on the tibiae of the middle and posterior pairs of legs and can fly very well by fully trained wing especially in the midday heat.

Occurrence

The animals come throughout Europe and North Africa and in Asia east to Siberia, in the Middle East and China. They come in Central Europe before anywhere, but are much rarer than water scorpions. They live in well- vegetated standing waters with a certain water depth.

Way of life

Staff bugs feed prey on a variety of small animals. They eat more, fortified animals such as back swimmers and larger water beetles on the one hand, and very small animals such as daphnia and mosquito larvae. They ambush their prey motionless in the water and exhaling through her ​​breathing tube, which is adjacent to the water surface. The females pierce their eggs under water in plant material, especially in the stems of aquatic plants a. This series usually be placed up to 10 pieces. The eggs have two respiratory appendages. Hibernation takes place as Imago in the water, rarely on land. Occasionally there is also second winter, after which the animals are no longer able to reproduce. A natural enemy of the rod bug is the wasp Prestwichia aquatica, whose larvae are parasitic feeding on the eggs of stick bugs.