Row, Row, Row Your Bug
Colorful Experiments Solve Water Strider Mystery: Their Middle Legs Serve as
Oars
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 7, 2003; Page A06
Scientists have deciphered the mystery of how the tiny water strider -- a
familiar denizen of your local pond -- gets around: It uses its middle set of
legs as oars and rows along the water's surface at a rate of almost 31/2 feet
per second.
In a series of colorful experiments reported in today's issue of the journal
Nature , a team of researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
mathematician John W.M. Bush used high-speed video and blue-dyed water to track
striders as they darted past the camera, leaving vortices as neat as those made
by a sculler in a boat race.

Go here for the rest of the article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Aug6.html
k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html