That tickles

I have a 35-gallon fish tank in my office, left over from our wetlands exhibit from last summer. It currently contains one mosquito fish (about 1.5 inches), a crapload of snails, and three water skaters. I don't know how long water skaters usually live, but these have been living in the fish tank since the end of July, when I caught them in Emigration creek. I think we may be going for a record here.

Anyway, last week I was cleaning out the tank and changing out 15 gallons of water. I had thrown some ants on the water for the water skaters to eat, and they had been fighting really hard over them. They're good fighters. They're also very good jumpers. As I was vacuuming out the bottom of the tank, two of them got tired and decided to crawl out of the water for a rest. I took this picture right after one of them got back in the water.