😂😂 so true👍

Definitely cuter as an adult 😅

Overall, I would give the Salt River water trail in Arizona a solid Odonata-boosted thumbs up. Highly recommend!

And then there was this damselfly who had a majorly bent abdomen. I’ve never seen that before either! I do not know how or why it’s that way. 🤔

I also discovered that Veliids bite!!
News to me! I was bit by quite a few that day.
Did YOU know that they bite?

I’m guessing it’s a casual..’let me taste this bc why not’ kind of thing rather than a targeted attack (like in mosquitoes).
Still hurt tho😬
Here is one that had JUST rudely bit me😡:

I was sitting there watching her and another female for 20minutes. By the end, my submerged right food had accumulated quite a number of leeches!! One was latched, the others were chilling. I do wonder if they were blood suckers or just were there because I was a piece of furniture after 20min.

I watched the male damselfly drop her off at the water’s surface! And the whole time I was recording, he was hovering above, I’m guessing waiting for her to resurface?

I haven’t seen that behavior before. I always thought they stayed attached the whole time and for paternity reasons.

Thank you! It was so exciting to see

That previous photo is me taking a video of an adult, winged, female damselfly who is underwater and laying eggs in the stems of the underwater plants. Here is the view. You can watch her curl her abdomen around and insert the two eggs!! 🥚 🌿

Tomorrow we are hiking to a waterfall in the cloud forest. It is a half hour hike to the waterfall but they are giving us four hours for the hike because… well, bugs! Iykyk
🦋🐞🐜🦗🪲🪰🕷️🔍

Camera flipped and it’s me, @beetlequeen.bsky.social and @arthropodabbey.bsky.social on the other side!
#CricketCourse

Thanks! We are at a station by the Children’s Eternal Rainforest

Nice job!

I was happily surprised by this one though at first I wasn’t sure if it might mean computer code buggy!

😂😂❤️

Thanks! I just noticed you are with ASU too. Are you here in Tempe?