I took this photo of a “skimmer” (water strider is the proper name) in a small stream on the White Rock Falls trail in Virginia. The stream through a hilly section divided into small pools.
The skimmers tended to shy away into a corner of the pool as they saw me lean in to take photos. Then, if I was fairly motionless, they would repopulate the surface slowly. The fact that they can float on surface tension, with thin “feet” is hard to really imagine. They should need tiny pontoons. The shadows of the skimmers on the stream bottom were interesting too. There were shadow circles where their feet were. The curvature of the water must have diverted the sunlight enough to cause a shadow.
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