I did not scream like a girl!

Daisy and I were on walkies by the pond. Sitting on our stumps, breathing in the fine, cool, crisp air, I heard something in the leaves. This poor little frog was having its blood sucked out by an incubus.

OK, it's too close to Hallowe'en. It was a massive Water beetle. You can see the size of my shoe in the 3rd photo. All I had was my videocam, and its photos aren't great, but here you are! I picked the frog up, tossed it into the pond water, after the Water beetle let go. Thankfully. It's about 3" long.

Have you seen these bugs? Beetles, I suppose. They fly. A water beetle, but they don't need to live in the water. I spotted this one, below, in September, 2011 on my 2nd story back porch. Seriously. They have quite the pinch, apparently. I chose not to touch it, bad role model for Daisy.

More info:
Raven Garfield Sculptor  Oh it absolutely preys on frogs and other critters directly!! It has a penetrating semi-retractable proboscis. Think of it as sort of a mosquito way of feeding. It has digestive enzymes... seizes prey in its arms like a praying mantis would.... then jabs its pointy bit into the prey.. and slurps out the goop like a spider.

Really, it has neat features of several other critters when you think about it! I'm a big time entomology nerd... I used to love keeping these guys in tanks. They almost invariably use their hind legs to hold on to air hoses or power cords.... rear ends with an air tube breaking the surface.. arms spread wide waiting for some wee bait fish to swim past and *WHACK!!!*. When they were done feeding you'd see these husks of wee fish.. all bent in the middle at a sharp angle where they were folded in half to be hollowed out.