Can you identify this?

Corwin · 07-04-2010, 05:49 PM

Alright so I was at my girlfriend's cabin this weekend and we came across a ditch with a number of these; http://www.fishforums.com/forum/album.php?albumid=392 (sorry dont know how to post pics directly into a thread) in it, and I caught one (as well as a good number of pond snails) and brought it back to the city in order to A) Identify it and B) if its benign keep it, but I cant seem to find anywhere what it is.

So here are my assessments on it after observing it both in the wild and in a small acrylic 1 gallon tank I keep.

- It looks a bit like a leech
- It has a very soft exoskeleton
- It holds a bubble of oxygen on the very end of its tail
- Its exoskeleton apears to be segmented
- Its mouth is completely wrong for any leach ive ever seen as it seems to be made up of a large number of little tiny rods or tentacles which it extends and retracts in rapid succession as it moves.
- It has no legs whatsoever
- It moves in an inching motion
- When you touch it with anything (never touched it with my hands) it stiffens up and either tries to act dead or like a piece of drifting wood. It holds this stiff shape even when removed from the water.
- It appears unable to move out of water (I havent seen it do so, though I never left it out of water for any amount of time)
- Its big, I would estimate it to be around 1" in length
- when left in a small container of water it rapidly ceases to have any signs of life, though when returned to a larger container it begins to move again (requires a lot of air?)
- refuse in the water seems to stick to it.

I assume it is the larvae of SOMETHING I just dont know what and cant seem to find anything on the internet that will help identify it, so I turned to you fine fellows in the hopes of some help

.

Corwin · 07-04-2010, 09:52 PM

bump.

dan3345 · 07-04-2010, 11:07 PM

sorry i cant help you, but I wanted to say it looks really creepy and disgusting.. eww..

**emc7** · 07-04-2010, 11:26 PM

lol, holiday weekend here, no one home, out watching fireworks. Wait til tues.

toddnbecka · 07-04-2010, 11:29 PM

No clue, but I do know that leeches are segmented like earthworms and have a sucker on both ends of their body.
If it holds an air bubble it isn't likely to require a large volume of water to breathe. No gills would likely indicate some sort of insect larvae.
Check your local colleges/universities for an entomologist for help with an ID?

Corwin · 07-05-2010, 12:48 AM

I wound up doing a relatively thourough search on aquatic bug larvae and figured out that it was a horsefly larvae, I also found that they have a nasty bite/sting which can rival that of a wasp and that they will predetate on other things in the tank especialy small inverts. So seeing as I was intending to drop this guy into my 5 gallon ghost shrimp tank I instead would up flushing him. I didnt wory to much about flushing him though because he was a local species, and I had found him only a few miles outside of the city.

Though before he went down the toilet I did name him Seabiscuit

Figured it was fitting due to the fact that he was a horsefly.

lol I forgot its a holiday down south today (its July 1st up here for Canada Day). Guess thats why there was almost no activity on the forum today

Happy 4th of July btw

Oh also it was able to move independant of water. I discovered this when I came into the room and saw that he had crawled above the water line in the tank... Needless to say I found this somewhat disconcerting and blocked up all the openings to the tiny tank I had him in with large (extra) aquarium rocks I had on hand.

toddnbecka · 07-05-2010, 12:50 AM

Ack, horselies are nasty critters. I wouldn't even flush it, I'd just stomp on it to make sure it never matured.

charking · 07-05-2010, 05:43 AM

a horsefly bit my mum once and he had something toxic on its mouth and her leg swelled up like 5x its normal size and she was in hospital for a week.. they were considering to take her leg off!!! luckily the swelling went down though.. vile things urrrrrrrrrgh

Corwin · 07-05-2010, 07:45 AM

wow Ive never heard of a reaction like that to a horsefly bite... yeah they deffinitely are unpleasant animals. lol Todd I didnt want to risk having it sting me so I figured that the no contact dump it down the toilet method was a great option.

Username in use · 07-05-2010, 10:07 AM

I got bit on the neck one morning standing at the bus stop. I screamed and every1 laughed at me till i had a knock on my neck the size of a softball and the school made me go to the emergency room :/

Corwin · 07-05-2010, 10:13 AM

0_0... man you guys must have mutant horseflies down south... we dont get anything like that, our horseflies take a bite out of you (bring some flesh with them) it hurts like ____ but it doesnt make you swell up or anything

toddnbecka · 07-05-2010, 11:59 AM

It also depends on whether they bite or sting. Personally, I hate any critter that tears off a chunk then flies off to a tree to chew on it...

**emc7** · 07-05-2010, 03:07 PM

I got bit by a blue-tailed fly on the foot at my high-school graduation (on the football field) and had inch lump on my foot for a month. Nasty things.