This is one of many dragonflies that frequent our pond. You can tell that it's a dragonfly (and not a damselfly) because its wings are at right-angles to its body, and its eyes are joined.
This is one of the damselflies that frequents our pond. You can tell that it's a damselfly (and not a dragonfly) because its wings are aligned with its body, and its eyes are separate.
Said the damselfly to the damselfly: "This is my stick! Buzz off!"
It's a bug-eat-bug world out there.
Damselfly nymphs. Lang and I sat intently watching a damselfly in the pond the other day, and (as strange as it may sound) neither of us could tell whether the critter was above or below water. There are four damselflies in this photo - one above water, and three below. They're really quite captivating to watch, and they rarely sit still.
So, not all damselflies are damsels. BTW, the red one is the male, and prior to mating he grabs the female by the back of the head and flies her around the pond for a while, intermittently dunking her in the water. Not terribly romantic.
... and not all ladybirds are ladies.
While I'm on the subject of bug porn - here are a couple of beetles doing the wild thing. I think they're milkweed bugs.
An iridescent beetle on one of the many heads of wheat that sprang up as a result of there being so many bales of wheat straw sitting around here recently.
Two very fierce and scary blue-tongue lizards! (Sadly, our dogs are arch enemies of these little fellas).
