If i want a backswimmer in my pond, is there an easy thing to feed it?

Question

i want it in my pond to keep out mosquitoes, but i need something easy to feed it while there are no mosquito larva

Answer 1

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition

backswimmer common name for water bugs of the cosmopolitan family Notonectidae, so named because they swim upside down, usually near the surface of the water. They have oval bodies and long, oarlike hind legs, with which they swim rapidly, but their backs are more convex than those of the water boatmen. The exposed belly is yellowish to black. Backswimmers, 1/8 to 1/2 in. (3-12 mm) long, feed on small crustaceans, insect larvae, snails, and sometimes on small fish and tadpoles from which they suck the body juices. They can inflict a painful bite on a human being. Most of the 50 North..

Did you read the part that says they can inflict a painful bite to a human being?

Found this on feeding these lovely little nippers

All take only liquids in the form of plant juices, chiefly sap, or animal juices, chiefly predigested tissues or blood; only a few water bugs are able to add small particles to their diet, such as algae. Plant juices are taken from leaves, stems, buds, flowers, fruits, or roots. Some species suck the contents of fungal threads under rotting bark; others suck from moss cells. Predators suck from almost every arthropod; some prefer snails; and others may attack small fish, frogs, and tadpoles. Certain bugs feed on dead or half-dead arthropods, mainly insects. Those that suck blood take only warm blood from birds or mammals, mostly bats. Cannibalism may occur, primarily in gregarious species. Some Hemiptera do not feed as adults, for example, the males of scale insects. Food is obtained in the places they live, but blood-sucking bugs rest in shelters and leave their shelters to bite warm-blooded hosts.

It looks like they are something to avoid.  Why don't you get some Gambusia affinis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofis...