Predaceous Diving Beetles

Every couple of days I find one or a few of these in my pool and the other day a big one so time to Google and find out what they are. My neighbors think all unfamiliar bugs are or could be dangerous and I've always scooped them out before they get here. Turns out they are all over the US, Canada and Mexico plus the rest of the world. I assume they live in all these rain water ponds around here and are attracted by my security lights near the pool.

Habitat and conservation:  These beetles prefer quiet water at the edges of ponds and streams, floating gently among weeds. Before diving, they trap air between their wings and body, prolonging their time under water. Because predaceous diving beetles are strong fliers, they can fly away to new water if the pond they are in dries up, or if electric lights lure them away from “home.” This is why water beetles are sometimes found in birdbaths and swimming pools.

There are many, many different species of beetles, including hundreds of different predaceous diving beetles. If you are having trouble identifying them, congratulate yourself if you can say for certain that it's "some kind of a beetle"!

The movie shows three mating attempts including the two species Acilius sulcatus and Acilius canaliculatus, where the first two attempts are followed by matings, while in the third the female escapes.

Gold Striped Scarab

I never knew there were as many types of beetles as there are. I must have spent 2 hours looking for something similar. I finally gave up and called him a Gold Striped Scarab assuming I'm allowed to do that. This real pretty guy wasn't in the pool with all the others but was in the dogs water bucket. Just a fluke or all the rain (5-6 inches) from Hurricane Erick brought him out? He's running around in the yard somewhere now so my fearful neighbors won't have a story of caution to tell.  At least we were spared the wind last night and are even seeing a little sun today.

Mayate

Every morning I find bugs floating in the pool. They range from flies, gnats, bees, wasps, dragon flies and various types of flying small beetles. One small beetle will swim to the bottom if he thinks you are after him. So suddenly in the last few days I've been finding these large black beetles and I asked neighbors what they are.

They call them Mayates and they bite and can make you real sick. Most of my neighbors generalize about creatures and are fearful of a number of things that are not harmful like snakes and spiders. One neighbor told me about a person that was bitten by a Mayate of a different color, became very sick for years and the medicine to treat it was very expensive.

I started to search and mostly found Mayate to be a negative racial slur but somewhere in there linked it with a Vinchuca who is a carrier of whatever results in Chagas disease. Chagas sounded exactly what my neighbor described. So I ended up unsure if this beetle could transmit the disease or just a similar one. Anyway an interesting search adventure with some Chagas info below and a YouTube video song which shows the importance.  It may be a problem here.

In Chagas-endemic areas, the main mode of transmission is through an insect vector called a triatomine bug. A triatomine becomes infected with T. cruzi by feeding on the blood of an infected person or animal. During the day, triatomines hide in crevices in the walls and roofs. The bugs emerge at night, when the inhabitants are sleeping. Because they tend to feed on people's faces, triatomine bugs are also known as "kissing bugs". After they bite and ingest blood, they defecate on the person. Triatomines pass T. cruzi parasites (called trypomastigotes) in feces left near the site of the bite wound.

Scratching the site of the bite causes the trypomastigotes to enter the host through the wound, or through intact mucous membranes, such as the conjunctiva. Once inside the host, the trypomastigotes invade cells, where they differentiate into intracellular amastigotes. The amastigotes multiply by binary fission and differentiate into trypomastigotes, which are then released into the bloodstream. This cycle is repeated in each newly infected cell. Replication resumes only when the parasites enter another cell or are ingested by another vector. (See also: Life cycle and transmission of T. cruzi)