Strange Bug

[scitch]

I can't decide if this bug is ugly or beautiful. It crawled across my foot and I yelled to my daughter, "Krystal get a Ziploc bag so we can catch this bug!" It's about 4 mm long.

The first picture is of the entire bug at less than 10X taken through the phototube of the stereo microscope. I noticed that there are two strange features just behind its eyes that looked like tubes. I thought that maybe they were breathing tubes and put it in the compound scope at 40X to get a closer look. The reflected light makes them look more like an eye than a tube. Any ideas? The third picture, of course, is a 40X shot of its eye. The picture did not come out well mostly because of poor lighting. It was after midnight so I didn't take the time to set up any diffuser.

The first is a Zerene PMax stack of about 24 pictures, the second is 26, and the third is about 50 pictures.

Two questions:
1) What is this?
2) What are the structures behind the eyes?

Thanks!
Mike

[rjlittlefield]

This is a "true bug" of some sort -- order Hemiptera. I can't get it any closer from these views. Somebody else may recognize it.

I can't tell exactly which features you're looking at just behind the eyes. Many of these bugs have large ocelli (single-faceted eyes). Your second picture looks like it might be one of those.

--Rik

[scitch]

I think you're correct with the ocelli. The picture did not come out well. It's far clearer by eye through the scope. Here's a cropped picture with the features circled.



Thx,
Mike