Easyparadise - Nature Photos by Mingfei: Damselfly/Dragonfly

Showing posts with label Damselfly/Dragonfly. Show all posts

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Dragonfly Emerged 3

Dear friends, I’m back. I know you have waited me for long time. Soooooo sorry for that and thanks for your visiting again! Actually I still cannot load Blogger here in usual way. Now I’m here through GappProxy.

Anotogaster kuchenbeiseri is the largest dragonfly in Beijing. It’s the third and the last dragonfly species that I fed this year. They have all emerged in May and June when the network is unavailable. Now here are some records.

The full-grown naiad of Anotogaster kuchenbeiseri. I got eight of this in the Botanical Garden on April, 25.

Left：Male Right：Female

The naiads live in the mud under the stream, hunting all kinds of aquatic creatures by the “mask”, as it were, the forelegs of a mantis.

Six left one month later. The first male emerged in the morning of May, 27.

How to identify a dragonfly of Cordulegastridae Family? Their two eyes connect at one point.

Feeding tips: A relatively capacious space is necessary. Keep the environment dark and keep the water clean. Do not fill with too much water. Be careful about the temperature in hot summer. Warm water may lead to oxygen deficiency. And don't forget to put some rocks and branches for emerging.

Before its first flying, draining surplus water can lighten its weight.

Left：Male Right：Female

The eyes will turn to green a few days later.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Dragonfly Emerged 2

This has been posted in this and this post. It finally emerged in the morning of 5.11

My roomate told me that it had emerged when I woke up in the morning.

I didn’t go to bed until 1:30 for my homework. I was so tired that I fell asleep soon then missed the process.

This is Aeschnophlebia longistigma Selys, 1883

There are two special spots on its eyes

Unfortunately, it missed one leg during the eclosion

There is another nymph of this species in the water. I will try to capture the whole process of it next time.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Dragonfly Emerged

Remember this? It was captured on April 4 in Shangzhuang Reservoir. At first I thought it is Anax nigrofasciatus

Yesterday I found it turned green. It’s time to emerge.

About eleven in the evening, it climbed on to the branch from water. In the following hours it writhed tail frequently, climbed up and down.

After warming up, at 2:50, the eclosion started.

Have a rest. The picture on the screen is another post about the growth by slmok

Suddenly it did a sit-up, catching its old skin and whipped out abdomen quickly, then spread wings slowly.

In the morning. The eclosion was successful. Now it turned out that this is a male Anax parthenope, I was wrong at first. In my childhood, I ofter tied a female one of this species on a string to entrap male ones.

I put it in the sun to warm its body and it flew away at last.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

My Aquarium 2: The Molting

I found one of my dragonflies (the sixth one in this post) was a little unusual this morning. I looked it for a while and I found it’s going to change a new dress!

The process lasted about 20 min. Now the dragonfly is bigger and more beautiful. But its skin was soft at the moment so I removed other fish in the box in case they harm it.

Maybe this is the last molting before it becomes an adult. I’m looking forward.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

My Aquarium 1: Dragonflies

I went Beijing Botanic Garden and Shangzhuang Reservoir in the past four weekends. There I got some fish, shrimp and aquatic insects. Here are some dragonflies.

Date: 3/29/2008 (Beijing Botanic Garden); 4/4/2008 (Shangzhuang Reservoir)

This one was captured in Beijing Botanic Garden. It was killed by the following one the day after I got it. All dragonflies and damselflies lay eggs in water and the naiad also grow up underwater.

This one also from Botanic Garden. It’s the larva of an Anax parthenope, big and tigerish enough to kill any creature smaller than it, just like the above one.

I tried to feed it until it’s eclosion. After all it was full-grown. But it died somehow a few days ago…

This is another species of Aeshnidae from Shangzhuang Reservoir. Anax nigrofasciatus (you can find the adult’s picture in this post) maybe. It’s healthy and greedy.

Compare of two species

I got three of this from the Reservoir, but one was killed. I’ve no idea which family it belongs to.

Lots of damselflies could be found in the reservoir. They are small and fragile. Actually, I collected a lot of them only as bait for dragonflies and fish.