************************* This morning, I got up and went downstairs as usual—and oh! There was a dragonfly on the floor.
I had thought that the last remaining nymph still had some time before emerging, since it hadn’t even raised its head above the water yet… but apparently, a dragonfly that had emerged the day before had returned?
…On closer inspection, its wings look odd.
Checking the tank, I saw a nymph’s exuvia at the tip of the branch above the water. So indeed, the last nymph had emerged last night. I completely missed it.
Unfortunately, it had emerged in a bad spot. I never expected it to emerge this morning, so I had already placed the recycling trash right next to the branch. The proximity of the recycled items interfered with the freshly emerged dragonfly, and its wings didn’t spread properly—they stuck together.
With wings like this, it won’t be able to fly. I placed it on the grapevine for now, but a dragonfly that can’t feed will only survive a few more days.
They say “all’s well that ends well,” but this was exactly the opposite. My carelessness caused this poor creature harm. 😥