diving beetle

While these tangles are tight, the earliest sign of a predatory diving beetle will send the fleshy worms squirming in all directions.

Crisscrossing low-lying fields and saltmarshes are 900 miles worth of ancient drainage ditches - known locally as "reens" - home to hundreds of endangered species, including water voles, the king diving beetle and rootless duckweed, the world's smallest flowering plant.

Next, Valdez plans to quantify diving beetle predation on various amphibians.

This spectacular tarsus — the lowermost segment of an insect leg — is roughly 2 millimetres in diameter and belongs to a male diving beetle, which uses it to attach to a female’s back during mating.

The diving beetle, Capelatus prykei, is about two-fifths of an inch long — large compared with other diving beetles.