Ran across this fine looking character on the sidewalk in front of St. Paul’s on Washington Street. My first reaction was Horror! A giant cockroach! In Wellesley!
But I couldn’t match it up vs. any cockroach or palmetto bug pictures on the Web. So I hit up Jessica Walden-Gray from the Cambridge Entomological Club, who informed me it looked like an aquatic true bug, also known as a toe-biter. “They often fly to find new ponds and can be seen in peculiar places when they take a break on land. They have a nasty bite and are known to eat tadpoles and small fish,” she says.
Psyched I didn’t put the specimen in my running shorts pocket to examine more closely at home.
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