water critter identification

Recently, I was on the west bank of the Mississippi River just west of Memphis, Tennessee, in Arkansas, and I found some water that was left over from the overflow of the Mississippi River during the flooding in this area in May. In this water, there were some critters, that were between 1 and 1.5 inches in length. They were grayish in color. They looked to have a hard shell and it looked like they had 6 legs but I am not sure. They swam around on the bottom and it looked as though there were baby ones all around too. Can anyone tell me what these critters might be?

Recently, I was on the west bank of the Mississippi River just west of Memphis, Tennessee, in Arkansas, and I found some water that was left over from the overflow of the Mississippi River during the flooding in this area in May. In this water, there were some critters, that were between 1 and 1.5 inches in length. They were grayish in color. They looked to have a hard shell and it looked like they had 6 legs but I am not sure. They swam around on the bottom and it looked as though there were baby ones all around too. Can anyone tell me what these critters might be?

welcome to the forum! hmm are they bugs? i was gonna say scuds but 1-1.5 would be the worldest largest scud. lol. im sure some people in the area will chime in.

I will say scuds as well..

Remember what they say about fish and fish tails, what people say is always a lot larger than what they really are. I had a friend claim he had 2.5" altolamprologus and I went to see them and they were BARELY an inch.. We always exaggerate.

funny I was thinkin' scuds myself. What shape were they? Round, long?

Might also be tadpole shrimp, diving beetles, water scavenger beetles, dragonfly nymphs ...

welcome to the forum! hmm are they bugs? i was gonna say scuds but 1-1.5 would be the worldest largest scud. lol. im sure some people in the area will chime in.

I have never been in a forum before so I hope I am doing this correctly. ... Yes I think they are bugs. It looked as though there were 6 legs up toward the front (toward the head). It looked to have a hard shell type back (like a shrimp). They wiggled around sort of like worms, and in a quick fashion. At first glance, they looked like a leech (or is it leach??) but I don't think leeches have legs, do they?

I will say scuds as well..

Remember what they say about fish and fish tails, what people say is always a lot larger than what they really are. I had a friend claim he had 2.5" altolamprologus and I went to see them and they were BARELY an inch.. We always exaggerate.

Ooops, I did not see the other responses. Wow, cool - thank you all for giving it some thought!

Leeches do not have legs, they very well could have been some sort of bug larvae.

funny I was thinkin' scuds myself. What shape were they? Round, long?

They were long and the shell was only a half shell - like the way a shell is on a horseshoe crab.

Leeches do not have legs, they very well could have been some sort of bug larvae.

Yes that is true.

Might also be tadpole shrimp, diving beetles, water scavenger beetles, dragonfly nymphs ...

I will look these up to see if any fit the description. Thanks!

I will say scuds as well..

Remember what they say about fish and fish tails, what people say is always a lot larger than what they really are. I had a friend claim he had 2.5" altolamprologus and I went to see them and they were BARELY an inch.. We always exaggerate.

Might also be tadpole shrimp, diving beetles, water scavenger beetles, dragonfly nymphs ...

Ok, I looked all of those up and I am pretty convinced that they were some type of water beetle larvae. There are so many of them that look similar, that my mind is playing tricks on me as to exactly what they looked like now. But anyway, this is probably as far as we can go with this.
Thank you all for your help!
Rara

welcome to the forum! hmm are they bugs? i was gonna say scuds but 1-1.5 would be the worldest largest scud. lol. im sure some people in the area will chime in.

Deep ocean isopods reach 18 inches long. Just sayin.

Rara, go to Google Images and search for "triops". Did it look like that? 1-1.5 inches is the full size of an adult triops and they DO look like horseshoe crabs. Their tail is split in two parts at the end too. (Triops same as tadpole shrimp.)

Edited by bulrush, 07 July 2010 - 12:32 PM.

Tadpole shrimp from Kansas