Tuesday 7 October 2014

The Nymphs of Nethergong!

I had a brief visit to Nethergong Campsite late afternoon where I spent some time at the pond looking for dragonfly and damselfly nymphs. It didn't take long until I had caught about 10+ Hawker larvae, all Emperor Dragonfly I think at various stages. One individual was very brown in colour but looking at the shape and size of the eyes, I think it is still an Emperor. I took a few shots of this individual, both topside and underside.


Emperor Dragonfly Nymph 

I also caught 2 Broad bodied Chaser nymphs or so I think they are but my photo attempts were not that good, another excuse for a visit soon. Every time I pulled the net up there seemed to be good numbers of damselfly nymphs in the weed, a few very green in colour which I read is a feature of Common Blue Damselfly and I took a few shots of them to help with the identification. When I looked up close I thought the green individual was a Common Blue Damselfly, it seems both Common Blue and Blue tailed Damselfly have the band on the tip of the femora.


Damselfly Nymph 

Again a very pleasant session, still lots to learn and maybe a small magnifying glass will help sort out some of these tricky damselfly identification issues. I would appreciate some more help with these photos today, just to confirm or point out why a particular species is what it is. Weather permitting, hopefully another visit soon to see if I can catch some more Hawker nymphs and maybe get a few better images of the Chaser larvae.

4 comments:

  1. My Dragonfly book lumps the Common Blue and Azure Blue nymphs together.....no help there.! Something to scan the internet for once the weather gets too wet for going out :-)

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  2. You must of had nice weather, beautiful dragonflies images.

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  3. Marc ,
    Would agree with your Emperor ID , but my key to larvae leads me to thinking Azure Damselfly for the green one .
    I did mention it was going to be difficult with the damselflies , the caudal lamellae , the 3 'tails' , playing a major part .
    Have also sent an email .

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    1. Cheers Greenie. Will have to look at the Caudal Lamellae through the magnifying glass to see the patterning next time.

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