The last dragonfly nymph left in the tank had stopped eating about three days ago, so I thought it was about time for it to emerge. But this morning, I found it flipped over, dead in the tank. Since I had already lost several in a row, I had hoped at least the very last one would safely become a dragonfly so that I could say “all’s well that ends well.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
Back in June, they had been emerging one after another so smoothly—why did things suddenly turn into a string of failures? Was it the water temperature? Or maybe just the season?
Looking back on the dragonfly nymphs I collected at Setagaya Park pool, the final results were: out of 13, only 5 successfully became dragonflies and flew away. The breakdown:
Made it to emergence → 7 (5 successful, 2 failed; the failures were likely human error, possibly due to a mosquito repellent mat)
Died right before or during emergence → 2 (the last two; cause unknown)
Died from cannibalism → 3
Died during normal growth → 1
I fed them frozen bloodworms. At first, since nymphs only eat moving prey, I would dangle them with tweezers, but after a while they got used to it and would grab them on their own if I just dropped them in. As for regular rearing, as long as you watch out for cannibalism and water fouling from leftover food, it isn’t particularly difficult. The real problem is emergence.
↑ The body of a nymph that looks as if it might start walking at any moment. Looking closely, you can see the wing parts already swollen, showing it was right on the verge of emerging. I never saw it surface, but this one too must have failed during emergence.