Lesser water boatman

The lesser water boatman, also written lesser waterboatman and identified as Corixa punctata, is a freshwater insect of the order Hemiptera. Adults normally measure 5 to 15 millimetres and live in ponds, lakes, swimming pools and most other bodies of fresh water. The insect is green with long hind legs that it uses to swim, and these legs are covered in tiny hairs that help it float on the surface; it also has wings, which let it fly to suitable new waters. It feeds on algae and dead plant material, and it breathes by trapping air beneath its wing cases, using the trapped air as a physical gill that also converts waterborne sounds into airborne sounds it can hear. It looks like the backswimmer Notonecta glauca but is a herbivore that swims on its front, and it is unrelated to that insect and to Micronecta scholtzi, which is also called the lesser water boatman.