Heteroptera in the context of "Water strider"

A folk taxonomy is a vernacular naming system, as distinct from scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way people traditionally describe and organize the world around them, typically making generous use of form taxa such as "shrubs", "bugs", "ducks", "fish", "algae", "vegetables", or of economic criteria such as "game animals", "pack animals", "weeds" and other like terms.

Folk taxonomies are generated from social knowledge and are used in everyday speech. They are distinguished from scientific taxonomies that claim to be disembedded from social relations and thus more objective and universal. Folk taxonomies exist to allow popular identification of classes of objects, and apply to all subsections of human activity. All parts of the world have their own systems of naming local plants and animals. These naming systems are a vital aid to survival and include information such as the fruiting patterns of trees and the habits of large mammals. These localised naming systems are folk taxonomies. The ancient naturalist Theophrastus recorded evidence of a Greek folk taxonomy for plants, but later formalized botanical taxonomies were laid out in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus.

The Gerridae are a family of insects in the order Hemiptera, commonly known as water striders, water skeeters, water scooters, water bugs, pond skaters, water skippers, water gliders, water skimmers or puddle flies. They are true bugs of the suborder Heteroptera and have mouthparts evolved for piercing and sucking. A distinguishing feature is the ability to move on top of the water's surface, making them pleuston (surface-living) animals. They can be found on most ponds, rivers or lakes, and over 1,700 species of gerrids have been described, 10% of them being marine.

While 90% of gerrids are freshwater bugs, the oceanic Halobates makes the family quite exceptional among insects. The genus Halobates was first heavily studied between 1822 and 1883 when Francis Buchanan White collected several different species during the Challenger Expedition. Around this time, Eschscholtz discovered three species of the Gerridae, bringing attention to the species, though little of their biology was known. Since then, the Gerridae have been continuously studied due to their ability to walk on water and unique social characteristics.

Hemiptera (/hɛˈmɪptərə/; from Ancient Greek hemipterus 'half-winged') is an order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising more than 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, assassin bugs, bed bugs, and shield bugs. They range in size from 1 mm (0.04 in) to around 15 cm (6 in), and share a common arrangement of piercing-sucking mouthparts. The name "true bugs" is sometimes limited to the suborder Heteroptera.

Entomologists reserve the term bug for Hemiptera or Heteroptera, which does not include other arthropods or insects of other orders such as ants, bees, beetles, or butterflies. In some varieties of English, all terrestrial arthropods (including non-insect arachnids and myriapods) also fall under the colloquial understanding of bug.