Upside Down

It's been a fantastic week for dragonfly emergence in our pond.

To date we've got nine exuvia of the emperor dragonfly each measuring 56mm long. We knew there was masses of food in the pond as when the lights were on at night the water was heaving with tiny tiny organisms of various shapes and sizes. They can eat worms, tadpoles and snails which we have thousands of.

This is upside down  and shows it's six legs, it's abdominal spines, the segments and labium which from the side looks rather beak like on the head. The eyes are on the side of the labium.

They as larvae climb up the vegetation when the temperature and day length is propitious, redistribute their body fluid and push out through the thorax of the exoskeleton. The whole process takes under three hours as the legs firstly need to harden and then when the wings are freed they too need to unfurl and harden ready for their first flight. 

It's rained all day. I've been to the gym and settled down to office work afterwards. The dragon I rescued yesterday is still at the pond but it won't have been able to feed. Hope it's still alive!