The Emperor Dragonfly Nymph (Part 2)

I spent another night a few days ago in the conservatory taking a number of photos in my indoor tank of one of the emperor nymphs I managed to catch a few days ago. This individual was about 15mm in length and was just starting to darken in colour but was still a bit 'stripy'. I spent some time trying to capture a few pleasing photos using manual mode, f8-f11, ISO 400, speed set to 250 and in camera flash used and was again quite pleased with the results. Although quite small to photograph, I always enjoy the challenge of trying to get an image of the detail we may never otherwise see on these nymphs. As can be seen in some of the photos, you can see by the jaws on them that they have a fierce reputation and certainly are the top predators in the water in the insect world. Hopefully over the next few days I am going to try again to find and collect one of the 'stripy' Emperor Dragonfly nymphs which are quite stunning to look at. I'm not too sure if all Emperor nymphs start off as 'stripies' and lose this pattern as they grow but it would certainly make for a few nice shots to add to the collection.

Emperor Dragonfly Nymph (15mm)