Backswimmers have a characteristic way of swimming – on their backs, just under the surface of the water, using their hind legs to propel themselves. Although primarily aquatic, they can fly well and so can disperse … But having strong, healthy individuals from exotic species start new populations is probably bad news. Only after the final instar can backswimmers take flight, which they often do in the late summer and fall to mate and populate new bodies of water. This air bubble allows them to swim down and back up through the water column.Boatmen and backswimmers are excellent fliers, which is part of the reason why they are of interest to trout and char. Pond “quality” could depend on many things, including the risk of being eaten by predators like fish. The light backs on mature backswimmers are actually wings folded neatly down their backs. Then impart a quick, continuous, five- to seven-centimetre (two- to three-inch) strip retrieve. Their cousins, the backswimmers, often have a mottled dark brown and tan shellback or wing case, and an abdomen that usually displays a mottled pattern of several colours including yellow, tan, and olive. These “ponds” are actually just watering tanks that farmers use for cows and horses, but I added algae and artificial plants to make them more like natural ponds. Classic boatmen/backswimmer flights occur on calm, sunny days. If you continue to use our site, we assume you consent to the use of such cookies. Slashing and boiling riseforms signal the attack on those insects, while more are picked off as they swim down to or up from the lake bottom. Backswimmers are capable of flight, and they can fly between bodies of water, which is very helpful in the event a pond dries out. This could be another factor that determines whether an individual decides to stay or go.In the summer of 2013, I conducted a field experiment to learn more about how backswimmers make dispersal decisions. Thousands of the insects literally fly into the surface film, like raindrops falling from the blue sky, and then attempt to swim to …
Because I wanted to test the effects of body condition on dispersal, I first had to manipulate the backswimmers so that they had different levels of body condition. Each backswimmer was housed in its own little cup, and received a specific (and carefully counted) number of fruit flies to eat every day. I did this by carefully controlling how much food each backswimmer got to eat.Backswimmers are carnivores, and they aren’t very picky. Photo credit: Shannon McCauley.We know from observing these insects that not all backswimmers make the same decisions about whether to disperse.
Deeper zones of the lake can be very effectively covered with faster, full-sinking lines (like Type 5, 6, or 7).Allow the fly line and fly to sink to just off the bottom. As their name implies, they do swim upside down.Trout and char can feed on boatmen and backswimmers in very shallow water as well as in the deepest parts of the lake. After a couple days, I went back to the tanks and checked to see which backswimmers were still in the tanks, and which ones had flown away.Firstly, I found that backswimmers are scared away by fish; they are more likely to disperse when a fish is in their pond.I also found that the backswimmers with high body condition are more likely to fly, probably because they are strong fliers and have the best chance of successfully finding a new pond.Both of these results were really cool and answered some questions for us about how backswimmers make dispersal decisions. People sometimes find these insects in swimming pools, where the insects end up after the night’s flying excursion. Intermediate (Type 1) or slow-sinking lines (Type 2 or 3) are best for covering shallow water zones that are less than a depth of about three metres (10 feet). Once at the surface, it may either leap out of the water and fly or get a fresh supply of air, which is stored in a bubble under its wings and around its body, and dive again.
Flying backswimmers look like large white beetles as they whiz by during these mating and migration flights.
Here’s what the hundreds of drink cups looked like, colour coded and full of bugs.Left: Cups housing backswimmers at the University of Toronto. The plastron, or air bubble, is then overlaid on the surface of the abdomen. The idea is to retrieve the boatman or backswimmer pattern up through the entire water column.Boatmen and backswimmers are fairly easy to imitate at the tying bench. Air-breathing insects of the order Hemiptera, they have to come up to the lake’s surface to trap a bubble of air. These insects undergo mating and swarming flights during the early spring and mid- to late fall. Beadhead Prince Nymphs and Zug Bugs will often fool fish during the early stages of a fall or dispersion flight, but trout tend to get more selective after having eaten a few of the real insects. lakes, ponds, marshes, and are sometimes found in garden ponds.
In deeper water, it’s best to make as long a cast as possible, and wait a little longer for the fly line and fly to sink to the bottom. Photo credit: Betty Dondertman.Then I put the bugs in the tanks, and waited.
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