A legendary of Ca cuong drop

Belostomatid is the biggest insect of hemiptera species. Its essence is specially sweet and good smelling. Long since, fish sauce seasoned with belostomatid essence has been a special sauce in the Mekong River Delta countryside. Fresh belostomatid which is grilled done to a turn will make the essence from its stomach vaporize, and then put it into a bowl of fish sauce to make a wonderful fish sauce. This kind of sauce is used together with vermicelli and grilled chopped meat, shrimp…

Today, this special sauce is becoming scarce because it is very difficult to find a belostomatid in polluted environment. 

The taste of belostomatid has fascinated many American and European in their art and cuisine. In January 1999, a bionomical scientist of Arizona, USA university, Dr. Robert L.Smith, came to Vietnam to carry out a project about studying belostomatid during four years. He studies to define the chemical formula of belostomatid essence to apply in the production by raising or chemosynthesis in order to produce the essence for foodstuff technology.  

The most famous belostomatid in Mekong Delta is Lethocerus insulanus( also called L.indicius) of Belostomatidae species. They are 70 to 80mm long and with dark brown skin. They live in water when growing up and they can fly in the night. Especially, they like light under the moonlight. When the cross season comes, the male will climb up the grass near the water surface. Then they extract pheromone (called genital hormone – usually extracted by the female of other species, except from belostomatid) and beat their wings to make ripples on the surface in order to fascinate the female. The female in the water see the signal of the males and answer them by swimming up the surface and mating. Then the female will lay hundreds of eggs throughout many nights. The net of eggs are brown and blue and they stick around the top of grass over the surface. The male are in charged of watching them until every eggs hatched and the male will die. The child belostomatids grow in water and eat insect. They can catch fish and tadpole when they are grown-up. The reproductive cycle usually last one year and then they fly up to the grass and mate in the next year. 

As bionomics, belostomatid can be considered an bio-indicator to evaluate the insecticide contaminated degree in Mekong River Delta. If belostomatids appear a lot in water, there will be a happy signal about living environment.

(source "Cà cuống lại xuất hiện rộ")
Dr. Nguyen Van Huynh.
Can Tho University