A Deeper Look: Red Specs In Water Insects?

Nov 06, 2020 • 3:56 PM UTC

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As someone who has never used a foldscope, I was excited to test out my handy new device. Heading to my backyard I thought deeply about what I wanted to look at. From middle school science classes to college chemistry and biology labs, I was no stranger to looking at leaves, hairs, and prepared substances under the lenses of many microscopes. But I wanted to look at something different– in fact, I wanted to look at something I knew I hadn’t seen before. So to do that, I set out on an exploration through the depths of my backyard. Ultimately I decided to collect a sample of rainwater from our water pot as I knew it would be teeming with life. Rain water that collects is almost always full of several creatures, bugs, insects, and plants that collect following a downpour. Princeton, New Jersey has many unique species of bugs (something I’ve come to realize over the past several months) and as such, I was excited to see what I would find. Sure enough, putting just a nickel-sized drop onto my slide, I discovered something that I hadn’t seen before: two distinct, but unidentifiable mystery water bugs.

The two mystery insects (a small one is on the left, the other is on the right with much bigger wings)

Another picture of the slide containing the insects The winged creatures were clearly insects of some sort that had either been rained down on or had accidentally found themselves in the mix of the water pot. Regardless, the transparent wings of the much larger mystery fly (which will be the focus of the post) were unique in that they appeared to contain several red balls. Were they eggs? Were they parasite larvae? I had never seen anything like it– granted, I had also never observed a bug so closely before. Nevertheless, upon first observation, I noted that the red specs appeared not to be moving, but rather were spread out sporadically throughout the area of the wings. Some of them were even floating freely in the water sample. Noting that, I concluded that the mysterious red specs were likely not eggs, but rather, possibly some type of matter that had collected in the water pot. But again, what exactly they were remained a mystery. Turning to the foldscope, I hoped to get more answers. I had found the bug in Princeton, NJ, knew that it was a winged insect, knew it had either purposely or accidentally ended up in a pool of water, and contained several red specs spread out over the body of its wings. Putting the slide into the foldscope, I eagerly looked around trying to identify what I was looking at. Soon enough, the specs came into view.

The specs, I confirmed, were not moving. They were circular orbs, with what looked like clear, invisible shields circling their outer edges. Were these cells I was observing? I couldn’t be sure. It was fascinating to observe though because the water insect was clearly an organism that had once been full of life– and now, here I was, looking at the cells and components that made up its once life-filled body. The foldscope highlighted just how extensive and plentiful the small specs were but unfortunately revealed no additional answers. Could they be eggs of another species? Were they perhaps just particulates from the environment? I may never know. But to the Microcosmos community, I pose this question: what do you believe these specs are? And what is the relationship that they may have to the mystery insect? Though I wish I had more knowledge, I was nonetheless grateful to be able to observe something I truly had never seen before!
*I conducted this project as part of Professor Pringle’s EEB321 class at Princeton University*

A Deeper Look: Red Specs In Water Insects?

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