Eric Gofreed
Well-Known Member
For today's contribution I offer some insects; evolutionary the first animals to fly.
This is a female blue Dasher Dragonfly. As a generality the life cycle of a dragonfly from egg to adult is about 6 to 9 months. However there are some species where the aquatic stages live for several years before becoming an adult.
This is a dragonfly nymph. My friend found this dragonfly nymph in her dipping pool and brought it to me to photograph. Well that was a challenge I couldn't resist. I built a 4X5x1 inch aquarium from plate glass. Rinsed the insect with distilled water and put him in the aquarium. He went straight to bottom. I put a blade of grass in the water and asked him to grab hold and surprisingly he did. Using two flash with diffusers and an LED on the background I eventually homed in on the right exposure and eliminated most of the reflections in camera.
This is a water Boatman. It is a true bug and a member of aquatic insect in the order Hemiptera. These bugs can fly and bite. Those hairy oar like appendages are the hind legs. I photographed this bug in a wine glass.
This Blue-eyed Darner (Aeshna multicolor) was fairly easy to photograph. He hovered 3 feet a way for 5 seconds and posed for head-on and side views. Fortunately the background is uniform making auto-focus much easier or the camera.
This is a female blue Dasher Dragonfly. As a generality the life cycle of a dragonfly from egg to adult is about 6 to 9 months. However there are some species where the aquatic stages live for several years before becoming an adult.
This is a dragonfly nymph. My friend found this dragonfly nymph in her dipping pool and brought it to me to photograph. Well that was a challenge I couldn't resist. I built a 4X5x1 inch aquarium from plate glass. Rinsed the insect with distilled water and put him in the aquarium. He went straight to bottom. I put a blade of grass in the water and asked him to grab hold and surprisingly he did. Using two flash with diffusers and an LED on the background I eventually homed in on the right exposure and eliminated most of the reflections in camera.
This is a water Boatman. It is a true bug and a member of aquatic insect in the order Hemiptera. These bugs can fly and bite. Those hairy oar like appendages are the hind legs. I photographed this bug in a wine glass.
This Blue-eyed Darner (Aeshna multicolor) was fairly easy to photograph. He hovered 3 feet a way for 5 seconds and posed for head-on and side views. Fortunately the background is uniform making auto-focus much easier or the camera.
