I celebrated my birthday at Ellanor C. Lawrence park exploring the pond and stream life. This is one of my favorite parks, because it has many critters and the water in the stream is very clean and has many macroinvertebrates and fish and even snakes! (See my post on another adventure there.)
At the pond, we went to the cleanest waters and looked for macroinvertebrates. I looked in a little ditch at the bottom of the pond by the shore. After a lot of sifts, I saw the eggs pocking out of the water and found this water bug with eggs on its back!!! I scooped it up very carefully so I did not damage the eggs.
The water bug swimming in our critter box 
Water bug captured in the sifter
I identify this water bug as Abedus Immaculatus, the smallest bug from Belostomatidae family (order Hemiptera) in the United States. It is about 1 inch long. It is a male because they carry eggs on their backs to protect them. Here is a great aquatic entomology blog about this and an amazing picture of them hatching.
The largest among the water bug species can reach 4.5 inches in length! Such giant water bug named Giant is a character of my The Bug Story series, look at the fact sheet on page 25 of Book 4.
I got VERY lucky to see the water bug with eggs. The ranger said that she had not seen one with eggs before. We released the water bug in the same spot after briefly observing it our critter box.
This was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!
I will post about other critters we found, including a water penny, later. (Presence of water pennies means that water in the stream is very clean!)
This bug is amazing! Unlike the ranger, who at least saw a bug without eggs, I have never seen one at all… I wonder if they live in Europe too…