The Large Red Damselfly Nymph

After returning home from work last night, I called into a friends house who has a pond which supports some Large Red Damselfly nymphs. I collected a few and returned home to photograph them in the evening in my indoor tank in the conservatory. I had earlier prepared the water and soaked leaves to produce a more natural background colour and also added some weed for them to climb over. After having a good observation of them through my Opticron 10x field lens including the diagnostic broad caudal Lamellae with the dark 'X' mark on it, I introduced one to the tank and set about taking a number of photos. For such a small nymph, I was very pleased with the results and thankfully, the nymph posed nicely. As far as my set up was concerned, I used the Canon 7d on a tripod and settings used were manual mode, f8-f11, ISO 400, speed set to 250 and in camera flash used. I think I almost enjoy this type of photography as much as taking photos of the adult dragonflies and damselflies. Its a stage of their development that we seldom see and I continue to learn new observations and identification features I knew little about. Next time you pass a pond, lake or river, just take a moment to think that there is probably lots of dragonfly and damselfly nymphs completing their larvae stage in preparation to emerge in a few months time as stunning dragonflies and damselflies. A wonder of nature that hopefully I can bring a little closer for you to observe and appreciate. 

Large Red Damselfly Nymph