Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What do you think?

I found this dragonfly larvae "shed" in the water last night, it is 2-1/8" long. I have been finding a few of these every day in the water but this is largest one I have seen, the others have been a tad shy of 2".

What do think, did this one fly off, or simply shed it's exo-skeleton so it could grow larger? I am thinking it is still a predator lurking in the pond since the casing was found in the water.

Were there any standing sticks , reeds , weeds ect near the molts ?

No, but I do have have a ring of flooded grass and smartweed along the edge of the pond from when the water level was lower earlier this year. All of the molts I have seen have been found floating in the water, nothing clinging to any sticks, weeds or grass. I guess it's possible the wind could have blown them into the water or my frog chasing dog could have knocked them into the water.

Looks like the casing of a dragonfly nymph. Hatched, now flying around eating mosquitos.

Shorty has a casing from the dragonfly group commonly called Darner and technically called Aeshnidae (Family) with several different genera and numerous species. This group has large sized individuals as nymphs and without good dense habitat for them, they don't survive very long due to predation in ponds with high densities of sport fish, thus you usually don't see lots of the nymphs in these types of ponds. Various interesting names are Blue darner, Canada darner, Spatterdock darner, Black-tipped darner, Green -striped darner, Comet darner, Fawn darner, Swamp darner, etc. For some interesting pictures see:
http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/darner_dragonflies
http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/green_darner.htm
http://www.azdragonfly.net/species/giant-darner

I think the adult hatched from the casing because if it molted underwater the casing would not have floated. When the dragonfly molts out of water it traps air in the casing and it will float. The casing probably fell in the water after the adult hatched.

Thanks for the links Bill! The casing falling into the water makes sense, I bet my dog has been knocking them into the water off the smartweed while chasing frogs around the pond. I used to see empty dragonfly casing out of the water at my dad's old pond frequently but nothing this big.

Thicker shallow and shoreline vegetation would help protect these larger dragonfly nymphs. Is this a forage pond or sportfish pond? I see them more often in my minnow pond than my YP pond.

It's a sportfish pond that has been recently stocked, the sport fish numbers are relatively low and minnow numbers are still high. The pond was dug in April of last year and filled in 6-7 weeks. In June of last year I stocked 5 dozen FHM and three dozen GSH which was followed by an alum and hydrated lime treatment in July to clear the water. Then last October/December I put in 20 5-9" SMB (mostly 5-6"), 110 4-6" RES, and four gallons of minnows. The water levels dropped a bit last fall which allowed grass and weeds to grow along the edges this spring. It has slowly filled back up but is still not quite at full pool yet but there is a two foot wide ring of flooded vegetation around the edges of the water with plenty of cover for things to hide in. This spring I also added 41 3-6" YP and another 27 2-3" RES. Then three weeks ago I added another 24 4-5" pellet trained SMB from my RAS tank. At the moment I have FHM/GSH fry everywhere, new fry are hiding in the flooded vegetation.

The boom and bust cycles of a new pond are interesting to watch. I had a very large leopard frog hatch last summer with no sport fish in the pond. Also last summer through winter I had very large population of backswimmers that persited until ice out this spring. That was followed by a boom in toad tadpoles this spring that emerged out of the water last month, probably 10,000 tadpoles at one point. The current population that is booming seem to be FHM and GSH, how long that will last I don't know. I also have a fresh population of new tadpoles, probably bull frog tads in the pond now. The pond is still in transistional state of finding some balance.

Once the SMB get larger and start reproducing and panfish get larger, I am confident the larger dragonflies such as the Darner types will dissappear and be replaced by smaller types of species with different shaped shorter more stocky larval nymphs.

How big is this pond?. It will be very interesting for those with SMB RES YP to see how your fishery progresses. Keep good records for us. We are very interested.

The pond is 1/4 acre, the October stocked SMB are already 10-12", I have yet to catch a RES or YP. I have seen some Darner type dragon flys around the pond laying eggs recently.

Here is an old picture from my dad's old pond with the types of drangon fly and damsel fly larval nymphs I am used to seeing around here.

Great thread Shorty ! We have lots of DF of several types. About this time of year the small LMB will start going airborne after them. The LMB rarely catch one in flight but they keep trying.

how can one tell the difference from a Dragon fly nymph form a stone fly nymph??

The Salmon fly is obvious becuase of the vast poplulation that comes with it, but what about the others, like gloden stone flies? ect...

thanks for the answer, hope some one has one???