There are Belostomatids, giant water bugs all over the world, including Florida, as well as Minnesota. One particular species found in Southeast Asia has a unique flavor that is critical to proper Vietnamese cuisine. Belostomatids have a painful, venomous bite too, but the worst water bug for painful bites is the Notonectid, the back swimmer, even though they only get about ½ inch long to the giant water bug’s 2 inches.
Notonectids are right up there with water tigers, as far as pain goes.
Marian is working on her second bloodworm right now! Yuummmm! The first one looks like a bit of used cellophane.
Yes, I know she could harm my fish, and that’s why she’s in a nice Ziploc food container with some plants and her dinner.
I had that same thought, Cynth! What’s Petsmart doing selling things like these in with their red ludwigia? There are apparently a lot of little critters in with their plants, because one of my bettas goes nuts hunting in their fresh plants. I’ve gotten small snails before, but never something like this.
OK, now we have to find out when she’ll pupate. I’ll have to arrange a trip to a mud beach.
Maybe I can just FexEx her to Ding and HE can find her a mud beach.
[Nano, thank you for posting the pix of a fish louse, but it’s creepy.]
You might want to try feeding the dytiscid live earthworms, as bloodworms might be expensive and water tigers eat a lot! Dytiscids pupate in damp (but presumably not soggy) soil, according to the research I did, so you might want to set up a paludarium (cross between a terrarium and aquarium) to keep it in. One possible signal of the impending pupation might be a loss of appetite, but that could also just be a sign that it will molt to the next larger larval instar. Perhaps just giving it something sticking out of the water it can easily climb and transferring it to some damp soil when it leaves the water would work, too.
Paludariums are way cool. You can do a lot with them after your bug grows out. Perhaps this is Lambie’s next step after the Siamese bowl (?).
djm
Djm, do we hear you volunteering to provide this paludarium?
After she gets her strength back, and if dytiscids live in Florida, I think I’ll take her to the lake at work. She’ll love it there! Lots of plants to hide in.
Meanwhile, she’s devouring another bloodworm. I offered it to her this afternoon, but she rejected it. I soaked several in spring water until they plumped up, which seemed to do the trick. They certainly looked more appealing to me, and must have to her, because she latched right onto one.
The trick with those fangs seems to be that she can latch on and hang on, even if the prey tries to escape. She just trails along behind. Brrr!
Edited to add that she’s now dragged it onto a leaf so she can be more comfortable. Looks like a kid with a milkshake.
Come, now, Lambie. Its just an aquarium, possibly with some glass dividers siliconed in at differnt heights to help separate the water and the soil. A fifty gallon tank should be fine for starters. Think of all the different types of invertebrates you could raise in such a mixed environment.
Oh, look! ANOTHER dark side to tempt you with. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! 
djm
Are you saying that you soak bloodworms that have been kept in the freezer and that they plump up and start moving around? Like…the frozen bloodworms aren’t dead? It’s getting so that there are too many horrors here to comment on individually. Scorpion fish, self-amputation, fresh meat loving bugs (I mean, couldn’t anyone be fresh meat? Does the meat have to be dead?) and back swimming biters in Minnesota (thanks alot, I like to swim in the lakes up there—I thought), and now undead bloodworms.
I know! What is with these people?
Say, if Ding ever wants to collect earwigs, send him on to my place.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize a frank discussion of venom-induced pain could be so traumatic to the audience. Profoundly painful arthropod bites (and fish invenomations) are actually relatively rare events, especially in North America, so I didn’t think people would get so squeamish! I anticipated more reaction to the use of giant water bugs in Vietnamese cuisine than to the idea you could actually get painful aquatic insect bites. Personally, I’m more afraid of sharp objects hidden in the water than the rare painful insect bite.
There is one interesting native species of earwig found in the hills around Tucson Arizona. Sadly, almost all earwigs in North America are three species of rather common, boring old world imports. One rather odd fact about earwigs is that the males can have two remarkably long, thin members, longer than the length of the male’s body. Due to the members’ delicate nature, being so long and thin, should one get seriously damaged, they can switch over to the good one.
Rod
I think I was traumatized by a couple of episodes of Nature which talked about venomous everything in Australia—I’ve never really recovered 
. Seriously, I don’t think I would be able to travel there even though I’m sure you just watch where you’re putting your foot down----along with watching what drops into the swimming pool, watching your garden, watching everything! All the venomous things in the ocean there wouldn’t bother me because I would be too scared of sharks to get in the water. How about that little octopus with blue rings on it! The programs were very interesting and the idea of studying the chemistry and action of venoms because they might be useful for medical reasons (aside from making antivenins) was also interesting----but not a good encouragement to visit, in my case. I guess eating bugs sounds preferable to being horribly bitten by one. I would prefer them to be dried and ground up though. Don’t worry, I’m scared of sharp things in the water too so I protect my feet. I once swam in a lake that was a little on the warm side, I guess, and a LEECH got on me! I was actually pretty calm about it, considering it was latching onto me to suck my blood. Luckily I couldn’t really see it well enough to get it off so my husband had that pleasure. We both recovered .
Well, apparently this adaptation is working quite well because they are mighty plentiful around here. Actually, I was surprised to find earwigs mentioned in a novel by Charles Dickens I was reading. I don’t know that it is the same insect of course. They certainly are common. I guess I’m glad they aren’t interesting!
Run away! Run away!
You better high tail it, too!
That seems pretty surprising. I mean I knew there were a lot of species of bugs, but…
Solpugid mouthparts.
Hey, Cynth! Surely you must know about this:
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html
Cuisine from your own back yard. Literally.
Well, no. I didn’t realize they were spending their time making
MEALWORM-COVERED CARAMEL APPLES INSTEAD OF FIGURING OUT HOW TO GET RID OF ALL THESE DANG EARWIGS WE HAVE!!! 
“Above: In the midst of preparing mealworm-coated caramel apples, members Carol Fassbinder, Jennifer Mueller and Gretchen Schultz pose with Ripley’s director. Note nutritional information on the chalkboard.”
Do Carol, Jennifer, and Gretchen look like they are gritting their teeth while they are smiling? They do to me. I think they would like the fellow from Ripley’s Believe It or Not to remove his arms and himself from their kitchen. Note how Carol has cleverly lowered herself so as to be out of his reach.
Cynth, I know we’ve talked about this before, but have you tried sprinkling a little diatomaceous earth around the house? It’s harmless to you and your kitties, but it may get rid of those earwigs.
It consists of the sharply pointed skeletons of ancient sea creatures. Pokes little holes in the bugs and they dry out.
Marian is much cuter than those pictures. She’s resting today after her big meals.
My attitude about insects in the house is to keep things as reasonably clean as possible and then treat anyone that comes in as just a consequence of living on Earth. I am rather fond of the various living organisms I’m always running into. I get to collect and breed various cultures of fungi for my mycology class this semester! If I can get pictures, I can share with the rest of you. I also ordered some parts for my fusion reactor, so I can update that thread, too!
Rod
By all means. The world awaits with a worm on its tongue.
(i.e., with baited breath).
Or a worm in its jaws. Marian turns out to be a little eating machine. I think she’s growing.