Thursday 2 July 2009

Pond Dip - July 2009

Having seen Jeremy's blog yesterday I was determined to get some more photographs of the dragonfly larvae in the pond.

This is a common darter:



I found two in the pond this morning.

It looks like all the broad-bodied chasers have emerged because I couldn't find any larvae today. The photo below was taken in June:



I wonder why they are so muddy compared with the darters. When they emerge from the pond they aren't muddy - maybe it's a method of avoiding predators?

I photographed this larva in August 2008. I suspect it's either an emperor dragonfly or a southern hawker.

2 comments:

Scriptor Senex said...

A question I am commonly asked is do dragonfly bite? Especially since they were once known as the Devil's Darning Needles. Also do the larvae bite? How about this as the subject of a future article.

Helen said...

Thank you very much for the idea. Must admit I hesitated to pick the larvae up. Will have to find out!