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Sticker of Sea skater
Bug card No. 1203 of 1,500

Sea skater

Halobates
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsTrue bugs and cicadasPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The sea skater is a tiny water strider that walks on the sea. Most live near warm coasts, but a few kinds spend their whole lives far out on the open ocean. They are the only insects known to live out on the open sea.

Lives in
Warm seas all around the world, near coasts and on the open ocean
Length
6.5 mm (0.26 in)
Top speed
about 1.3 km/h (0.81 mph)
Swimming, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is tiny and lives on the sea.
What does it eat?
It eats insects that fall into the water, tiny floating sea creatures, fish eggs and even bits of dead jellyfish.
For real!Photo of Sea skater
Picture by Michael F. Schönitzer. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Sea skater about 6.5 mm long (0.26 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould swim the length of a bathtub in 5.5 secondsmoves 56 times its own body length every second

How big is Sea skater compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It never dives. It skates on top of the water and grabs food just below the surface with its front legs.

2

It rows with its long middle legs and can zoom along at 1 metre a second or faster.

3

Out on the ocean, it glues its eggs onto floating things like feathers and cuttlefish bones.

4

Sometimes three or four sea skaters share one bigger meal, like a small fish.

5

It has no wings. Ocean kinds only reach the shore when a storm blows them there.

you asked

Most asked questions about Sea skater

?Can insects live in the sea?

Very few can. Sea skaters are the only insects known to live far out on the open ocean.

?How big is a sea skater?

Its body is at most about 6,5 millimetres long, and with its legs stretched out it is about 1,5 centimetres wide.

?What does a sea skater eat?

Insects that fall into the water, tiny floating animals, fish eggs and dead jellyfish.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Halobates
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Gerridae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Gerridae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania, Africa, North America, South America
Also known as
Ocean strider

Where the facts come from

  1. Halobates (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Michael F. Schönitzer. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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