Hawaiian pond bug

Microvelia vagans · Order: Hemiptera · Family: Veliidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Hawaiian pond bug
Photo: Grigory Heaton, CC BY-SA

The Hawaiian pond bug is a small water-treading insect that is found only in the Hawaiian islands. It lives in still water such as small puddles at many elevations, but is more common in the higher, less developed parts of the islands.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

The bug is small in size.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it comes from

It is endemic to the Hawaiian islands.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 1 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Hawaii.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: endemic in United States. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Hawaiian pond bug photo 2
Photo: nmoorhatch, CC BY
Hawaiian pond bug photo 3
Photo: iNaturalist user, CC0
Hawaiian pond bug photo 4
Photo: Kevin Faccenda, CC BY

Same family (Veliidae)

Microvelia americanaMicrovelia americanaRhagovelia distinctaRhagovelia distincta

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microvelia_vagans

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-29 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-29.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.