A sampling of dragonfly colors (colored bodies and/or colored wings), all photographed by me in Indiana. Many IDs determined or confirmed by Dennis Paulson, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East. Collage made through canva.com, not using a pre-selected template but manual selection, resizing, and arranging.
Species. Top: male slaty skimmer, male blue dasher, ovipositing female green darner (rear) with mate-guarding male.
Middle: red unknown species, male eastern amberwing, female eastern pondhawk.
Bottom: female widow skimmer, female calico pennant, male twelve-spotted skimmer.
Tags: dragonfly Indiana dragonflies slaty skimmer blue dasher ovipositing green darner mate-guarding male eastern amberwing female eastern pondhawk female widow skimmer female calico pennant twelve-spotted skimmer ovipositing dragonfly eastern pondhawk widow skimmer calico pennant MosaicMontageMonday freestyle
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A sampling of colors of damselflies, all photographed by me in Indiana, all but gold spreadwing in bottom left southern Indiana. I have IDd only a few of these, but hope to ID more over time. Collage made through canva.com, not using a pre-selected template but manual selection, resizing, and arranging.
Top: purple is male variable dancer, brown unknown, black shaking her wings is female ebony jewelwing. Bottom left unknown species of spreadwing, gold in color. Bottom center is probably an immature female eastern forktail. At bottom right, unknown female, possibly ovipositing.
Tags: damselfly damselfly colors male variable dancer spreadwing variable dancer ebony jewelwing female eastern forktail
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Flickr Lounge: jigsaw puzzle image
All photos were taken in my backyard; photos of the J-shaped caterpillar through the emerging young butterfly were the same female monarch. Beginning at center left and moving clockwise: female laying egg (ovipositing) on common milkweed; egg about ready to hatch and first-instar caterpillar; second instar caterpillar; later instars; caterpillar in J shape ready to form chrysalis the following day; the chrysalis in three stages; right center: the chrysalis on the rainy morning of the day she eclosed in the early afternoon; bottom row (left to right): the first few minutes out of the chrysalis, wing expansion; middle photo: all she needs now is drying time, as her wings have fully expanded and she has excreted the excess fluid onto the leaf beneath her. She took her first flight the next morning.
With Flickr down for the day, a rainy day locally, and taking a day between work projects, I decided to play around with making some collages (through canva.com) with some "themed" photos, and this was an obvious one. Unfortunately I've never observed, much less photographed, monarchs mating, but the rest of the metamorphosis cycle is included here. The collage was arranged by hand, by the way, with photos enlarged or made smaller and moved into place, not set to a grid. Please forgive any imperfections.
Tags: collage butterfly collage monarch butterfly monarch collage monarch metamorphosis butterfly
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The same chrysalis of a female monarch over time. Top left, first two views: minutes old; top right: later that day; bottom left: how the chrysalis appeared for the next three weeks; bottom middle: color shows in the chrysalis the day before emergence; bottom right: color (and raindrops) the morning of the day she eclosed, 23 days after forming her chrysalis (a lot longer than any of my sources said). Notice the stem of the plant changed color in the three weeks she was attached to it, as fall developed.
She was cooperative in putting the chrysalis on a mint plant in the open where I could easily observe it and take photos over time--and could watch her emerge. Each stage was so lovely, and I wanted to show them side by side. The chrysalis retained moisture--when it rained, drops would stay on it far longer than on leaves and other items around it. It was also very pretty with raindrops, so I included two photos with such. (Not that I had any choice but to take it with raindrops the day she eclosed--it rained all morning, and I sat outside with an umbrella for hours, and she finally emerged in early afternoon.)
Tags: collage butterfly collage monarch butterfly monarch collage monarch metamorphosis butterfly monarch chrysalis butterfly chrysalis cocoon
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Right two shots giant swallowtail. Top: black swallowtail; middle: spicebush swallowtail, pipevine swallowtail; bottom: zebra swallowtail, eastern tiger swallowtail. Pipevine was photographed in the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee; all other butterflies photographed in Indiana.
Tags: swallowtail swallowtails of Indiana midwestern butterflies butterflies of Indiana butterfly insect comparison chart insect chart butterfly chart composite photo butterfly composite Indiana insects Indiana wildlife tiger swallowtail giant swallowtail black swallowtail spicebush swallowtail pipevine swallowtail zebra swallowtail eastern tiger swallowtail
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