BioSnap: Water Tigers!

Category : Conservation, Educational, Environmental, Biodiversity, Biology
Dec. 17, 2021 at 6:12 a.m. MST

Meet the ferocious Water tiger. The Water Tiger is the larval stage of the predaceous diving beetle. Armed with sharp grasping mandibles, Water Tigers use their many legs to cling onto grass and debris on the bottom of lakes where they quietly stalk their prey. Easy to spot when coming up for air, Water tigers undergo several molts getting progressively larger until they are finally able to pupate and undergo metamorphosis to become a leathery, dark adult beetle about the size of a fingernail.