Spending this isolation time re-cataloguing my dragon and damsel shots. I came across this. It's not a photograph. A friend at RPI allowed me to use a high definition flat bed scanner to "photograph" this excuviae. What came from the scan could not be up loaded to most any means to send it. I had to reduce it buy more than half but it still looks fairly sharp. It is the shed skin of a Stream Cruiser (Didymops tranversa) and a photograph of the emergent male adult. The exuviae is the skin or molt left as many Arthropods go from one instar (time between one molt and the next) to another. In dragonflies you may find these on emergent plants or on the bank along the shore as they go from their nymph form to adult dragonflies. This guy is a muddy bottom dweller and they may emerge on the shore instead of an emergent plant like many other Odes. Thus, the mud and sand on this exuviae. This one is quite different to me. As you can see the point of emergence is at the left eye instead of between the wing pads thus a nearly complete molt. They are quite fragile and as you can see this guy is missing 3 tarsal claws. Sorry for getting diarrhea of the keyboard.
I have about 300 exuviae (let's not get into a discussion on what is singular and what is plural) on the microscope table to try to identify to species. Calculus and analytic geometery were easier.
Please stay safe and well!
-Doc

Spending this isolation time re-cataloguing my dragon and damsel shots. I came across this. It's not a photograph. A friend at RPI allowed me to use a high definition flat bed scanner to "photograph" this excuviae. What came from the scan could not be up loaded to most any means to send it. I had to reduce it buy more than half but it still looks fairly sharp. It is the shed skin of a Stream Cruiser (Didymops tranversa) and a photograph of the emergent male adult. The exuviae is the skin or molt left as many Arthropods go from one instar (time between one molt and the next) to another. In dragonflies you may find these on emergent plants or on the bank along the shore as they go from their nymph form to adult dragonflies. This guy is a muddy bottom dweller and they may emerge on the shore instead of an emergent plant like many other Odes. Thus, the mud and sand on this exuviae. This one is quite different to me. As you can see the point of emergence is at the left eye instead of between the wing pads thus a nearly complete molt. They are quite fragile and as you can see this guy is missing 3 tarsal claws. Sorry for getting diarrhea of the keyboard.
I have about 300 exuviae (let's not get into a discussion on what is singular and what is plural) on the microscope table to try to identify to species. Calculus and analytic geometery were easier.
Please stay safe and well!
-Doc