How Does The Long Toed Water Beetle Breathe Underwater?

The long toed water beetles are very small beetles measuring no more than a few millimetres in length. They are found all over the world and they live under stones in streams and on the beds of streams. They are completely adapted to live underwater, but they have no special swimming apparatus.

Living in a stream, this would serve them no real purpose as swimming would always be difficult. Instead they concentrate on anchoring themselves to rocks and stones to stay in more or less the same part of the stream.

Their real skill however, is the technique they have developed to breathe underwater. The beetle climbs up the stem of an underwater plant and collects the bubbles of oxygenised air that cling to the surface. It dislodges the bubble with its jaws and then pulls it away from the plant with its foot and places it on its abdomen. From there, the oxygen is absorbed directly into the beetle's body. It then releases another bubble containing waste carbon dioxide, which detaches and floats to the surface.

So they dont breath under water