Lethocerinae Lauck & Menke, 1961

Novoselsky, Tanya, Chen, Ping-Ping & Nieser, Nico, 2018, A review of the giant water bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Nepomorpha: Belostomatidae) of Israel, Israel Journal of Entomology (Oxford, England) 48 (1), pp. 119-141 : 130

Subfamily Lethocerinae Lauck & Menke, 1961

The subfamily Lethocerinae is represented in the Israeli fauna by the genus Lethocerus . All species of Lethocerinae are emergent brooders, their eggs being deposited on near-water vegetation and tended to by the males ( Lauck & Menke 1961).

The Lethocerinae include the largest Heteroptera, reaching 120 mm length and being among the largest living insects. They differ from the rest of the Belostomatidae in having the widened mid and hind tibiae, the short and stout beak, slen- der respiratory appendages, a “suture-like” fold on the parasternites, the aedeagus completely separated from the ventral diverticulum, fore legs of larvae with two equal claws, and their reproductive trait that involves oviposition on a substrate outside the water and guarding behaviour of the male ( Ichikawa 1988; Smith & Larsen 1993). Identification is often difficult because many species are very similar in their general appearance.