Insects that skate on the ocean benefit from plastic junk

Imagine a world of two dimensions, a world with no up or down… just across. No climbing, falling, jumping, or ducking… just shimmying and sidling. Welcome to the world of the sea skater. Sea skaters, or ocean striders, are small bugs. They’re relatives of the pond skaters or water striders that zip spread-eagled across the surface of ponds and lakes. Except they skate over the open ocean, eating plankton at the surface. “They skate through storms and wind and waves,” says Miriam Goldstein from the University of California San Diego and the Deep Sea News blog. “They even have a little ‘life jacket’ - the hairs on their body trap air so if they get sunk by a wave, they pop back up. They’re amazing!” There are only five species of sea skaters, all belonging to the Halobates group. Of all the millions of insect species, these five are the ...