Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Anybody recognize this little feller?

First guess is a dragon fly rdy to molt. Got a full body shot?

No question at all.....it's Theo.

Could it be a Cicada shell?

Quit making fun of Th3o.

A Darner right.


Here it is soon after birth.




And here it is after Dr. Frankenbruce finishes with it -- an alternative means of transportation.



:p

Eric is right. It's a darner--nymph stage. Aeshnida Aeshna, no less. In laymen's terms, that a dang big baby dragonfly.

I've apparently got tons of them in my pond. If you don't have a lot of fish reproduction, you get a lot of these.

...and then they get big and carry you away.

Ooops, credit to h20fwlkillr as well!


This is my source: http://pick4.pick.uga.edu/mp/20q?search=Aeshna+tuberculifera&guide=Anisoptera

Here's a quote from some text. I will provide the source if you wish.

"Dragonfly larvae are called naiads. Naiads of Green Darners are dark greenish-brown and will eventually grow two inches long.

Naiads are ferocious predators and will attack just about anything smaller than them, and even some creatures that are larger. They eat many aquatic insects, tadpoles, aquatic worms, and small fish. They also eat small animals that are washed into the water, such as earthworms.

Naiads will molt several times, shedding their outer shell and growing bigger each time. When they are ready for a final molt, the naiads crawl out of the water on a plant stem. Then they emerge from their shell as an adult".

Anybody ever hear them called "snake doctors"? Growing up in the Ozarks, the adults around me always called them "snake doctors"...I guess because of their egg laying activity. Always constantly kept me on guard for that snake they were "doctoring".

"WordWeb online" makes the following comment on "snake doctor".

Slender-bodied non-stinging insect having iridescent wings that are outspread at rest; adults and nymphs feed on mosquitoes etc.
- dragonfly, darning needle, devil's darning needle, sewing needle, snake feeder, mosquito hawk, skeeter hawk


Good job, ML. Very interesting.

Growing up in Kentucky, we called them "snake feeders". The kids were afraid of them, and swatted them with sticks at every opportunity. We learn!

When we wash my wife's dark blue car, we find plenty of dried up dragonfly eggs to scrub off. Her office is not far from a rice field, and the DF's apparently think the dark shiny paint is water. She often sees them dipping down and laying eggs on her car.

Here's the one that I see all the time around my place. This is a green darner.

Family: Aeshnidae
Genus: Anax
Species: Anax junius

I would do anything possible to encourage their presence because their naiads make the biggest chunk of protein that a bluegill could ever want. Maybe we should discuss how to keep them around, but it appears that some vegetation, barely sticking out of the water is ideal egg laying habitat.



This is a different species as the Aeshna naiad shown above, but mine look very, very much like this.

I like the term snake doctor a lot better, so from here on out I'll be referring to him as that.

Bruce, I frequently see DF's laying eggs on floating FA mats and aquatic vegetation that has made it to the surface at our pond. All they need is a place to land where they can stick their tail in the water.

Let me know if you need some help getting a specific identification of any bug, my brother works for USDA in the entomolgy dept.

I didn't know that! If Cody ever gets sick of me "bugging" him all the time, I'll have another resource. Ha!! :p

Bruce, do you mean yer all male pond?

I had "tons" of both damsel and dragon flies from spring through early summer this year but have watched the numbers decrease dramatically over mid-late summer, dont know if its because of the million gams, or if its just the natural life cycles of the dragon flies??

I was getting a few dragonfly nymphs when I was seining for small BG to train my SMB this last April and May. I made it a point to toss them in the SMB pen everytime I found a few in the net.

That reminds me, Monday night while was I tossing pellets out for the BG I had a 10" SMB swimming around with them, he wasn't interested in the pellets but he did stop all of a sudden about 10 feet from the dock, got semi-vertical, and then made a short dash, stopped, and then sucked something off the bottom and ate it. At the time I assumed it was a DF nymph that was crawling on the bottom.

Yes, sir.