A18 - PRAIRIE POST - Friday, April 20, 2012
Swift Current Bugs are part of diversity of life in creek
BY MATTHEW LIEBENBERG —
mliebenberg@prairiepost.com
12043RR00
There is no need to look up to the stars to find aliens because they are already living on earth. The bugs and other creatures that inhabit the Swift
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Current Creek was the topic of the monthly lunch and learn talk at the Swift Current Museum on April 11. The presentation by Stephanie Kaduck, the education and public education co-ordinator at the museum, illustrated the appearance and behaviour of these creek dwellers are even more fascinating than the alien creatures dreamed up by Hollywood. “Some of the creatures that live in our creek are
pretty unique,” she said. Many of these aquatic species are anthropods,which
are some of the most successful animals on earth that make up over three-fourths of all known living and fossil organisms with over one million described species. They are invertebrate animals with an external skeleton, a segmented body and jointed appendages.
Because an anthropod has an exoskeleton instead of bones, its shell does not grow with it. They have to shed those shells and grow new ones. During this moulting period they are vulnerable to predators. Dragonfly larvae are some of the biggest larvae in the creek. Like many of these creatures, the bulk of their life is underwater and by the time they are adult their life is almost over. Dragonfly larvae do not have gills. “They take water into their abdomen and the
breathing works like diffusion,” Kaduck explained. “Where there’s low oxygen, oxygen will come in and so they breathe that way. They can also shoot out the the water in their abdomen to jet propelled themselves forward.” Dragonflies are carnivores that will spend most of their time in the air because they are poor walkers. “They creep up on their prey and they have a lower lip that’s kind of a pincher,” she said. “After they creep up they extend that lower lip and grab.” The wings of dragonflies are always extended, even
when they sit down. It is an easy way to distinguish them from damselflies,which are smaller and they fold their wings up behind them when they sit. Damselflies also catch prey in midair and they use their legs as a cage. “Dragonflies and damselflies should be protected and heralded because they are voracious mosquito eaters,” she said.
In addition to being common and irritating, the mosquito is considered by many to be the most dangerous animal in the world because of the number of diseases it spreads. Male mosquitoes just drink sap, but the females are blood suckers because they need the protein to lay eggs. According to Kaduck, the female mosquito has a specialized proboscis. “There’s actually six little needles inside of there and that’s why we usually don’t feel them when they start to bite,” she explained. “Our nerves get confused because there are six points instead of one.” Crayfish is another common creature in the creek.
They have an interesting mating ritual. “The female crayfish attracts the males and then she fights them and only the strongest one gets to mate with her,” she said. “Like most arthropods, these mating rituals are all about survival of the fittest.” Scuds are freshwater shrimp that look like tiny grey
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Stephanie Kaduck (at right), the education and public programs coordinator at the Swift Current Museum, shows her display of bugs and other small creatures that she collected from the Swift Current Creek to members of the audience during a lunch and learn presentation on April 11. Below, A crayfish that was caught in the Swift Current Creek lurks in a holding tank at the Swift Current Museum.
seeds swimming in the water. They are an important food source for almost every other specie in the creek. “These guys swim on their sides, using their little legs to propel them forward,” she said. Predaceous diving beetles
are carnivores that eat other larvae, tadpoles and small fish. “The larvae eat by piercing the prey, injecting
digestive juices and then sucking out the contents, so a lot like spiders,” Kaduck explained. Dock spiders build their webs in the reeds for nesting. They hunt by diving under the water to catch their prey. The water strider is another carnivore that people will often see at the creek because they actually walk on the water. “They have special hairs on their feet that help to
keep them on the water surface and they go really fast,” she said. “It’s really tricky to catch them with a net but they’re quite inspiring to watch.” Other species Kaduck spoke about during her
presentation include the water boatman, backswimmers,whirligig beetles, water scorpions and giant water bugs. Many of these creatures are omnivores and scavengers that help to clean up the creek by eating dead animals and plant material. Their presence is also an indicator of good water quality. “The creek is very healthy and a lot of these
creatures wouldn’t be there if it weren’t,” she said. In June, the Swift Current Museum’s bugs in a
bucket program will give school groups an interesting insight into the diversity of life in the creek. They go down to the creek where they receive buckets with different species. The children then use a check sheet to help them identify the different creatures.
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