Got this Sunday. About as close as I ever have. This Flame Skimmer is finishing chewing his mosquito snack. You can't see it? It's the whitish "blob" under his mandible. Note the right combed foreleg next to its left eye: it's used to seize prey in midair, hold it, balance, climb up stalks of grass, and most important to clean off its mandible after a meal, and brush its eyes. The forelegs are the shortest of the six and are often confused as antennae like those of a moth. They're anything but! The next time you're out near a pond or stream, and you see a dragon turning a hugh eye (actually, it will turn his head which is mostly its two eyes) and the leg up like this, it's grooming. When it swipes at its mandible, it's flossing.
Will keep this short. Mary Chapin-Carpenter had a song in 1992 called "The Bug." The lyrics started, "… Sometimes you're the windshield, Sometimes you're the bug". This morning, I'm that mosquito!
Loading contexts...
