Freaky

Ok, so last night on my way to Shoppers (my daily outing) I ran into one of these. Being an archaeologist I continued to walk looking at the ground. There were tons of them. All different sizes, but it was the ones that were 5cm or more long that freaked me out. I had to watch where I stepped so as not to squish one of these large animals (the evidence that others had already done this lay strewn across the sidewalk). It was so weird. For anyone who doesn't know what these are, they are Predaceous Diving Beetles, and yes they are supposed to live in water. Apparently, the adults sometimes leave the water at night to fly to other water bodies, and while flying they are often attracted to lights. They feed on other aquatic arthropods and small aquatic animals including fish. How exactly this many of them made it into the cement and asphalt parking lot so far from any obvious water sources large enough for them is beyond me. It looked like a plague. Needless to say, they totally freaked me out.