- Animals
- ›Arthropods
- ›Hexapods
- ›Insects
- ›Winged and Once-winged Insects
- ›True Bugs, Hoppers, Aphids, and allies
- ›True Bugs
- ›Semiaquatic Bugs
- ›Water Striders and Ripple Bugs
Water Striders
Gerridae
The Gerridae are a family of insects in the order Hemiptera, commonly known as water striders, water bugs, pond skaters, water skippers, or jesus bugs. Consistent with the classification of the Gerridae as true bugs (i.e., suborder Heteroptera), gerrids have mouthparts evolved for piercing and sucking, and distinguish themselves by having the unique ability to walk on water. Gerridae, or water striders, are anatomically built to transfer their weight to be able to run on top...
9 branches of this family, most-observed first
Typical Water Striders
subfamilyGerrinae
Trepobatinae
subfamilyTrepobatinae
Halobatinae
subfamilyHalobatinae
Ptilomerinae
subfamilyPtilomerinae
Rhagadotarsinae
subfamilyRhagadotarsinae
Eotrechinae
subfamilyEotrechinae
Cylindrostethinae
subfamilyCylindrostethinae
Charmatometrinae
subfamilyCharmatometrinae
Eobates
genusEobates
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Gerridae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 59653.