Have you ever watched a dragonfly-to-be break out of its exoskeleton and undergo a remarkable metamorphosis from a water-breathing nymph to an amazing aerial acrobat? It is an amazing and fascinating process that rivals (or maybe even surpasses) the more familiar transformation of a butterfly that many of us studied in school.
On a recent excursion to look for dragonflies in Prince William County, my good friend and fellow dragonfly enthusiast Walter Sanford excitedly called out to me that he had spotted a dragonfly that was midway through the process of emergence. We had not had much success up to that point in the day, so Walter’s news was especially welcome.
When dragonflies are in the process of emergence, they are very vulnerable. Their bodies are undergoing some incredible changes and they do not yet have the ability to fly. If you look at the first photo and compare the size of the exoskeleton (often referred to as an exuvia) to that of the dragonfly, you can get a sense of the magnitude of the changes that were occurring.
I moved a little closer for the second shot, being careful not to disturb the dragonfly, in order to capture some additional details. The exoskeleton shows, for example, little wing pads that are tiny when you compare them to the wings that are still closed over the dragonfly’s body. A little later in the process, the dragonfly will unfold the wings and will be be able to fly, albeit weakly at first.
At this stage, we could tell that the dragonfly was a female, because of the shape of the terminal appendages, but we could not determine its species, because its colors and markings were still really pale. Depending on the species, this transformation process can take as long as several hours and it can sometimes take a few days for the colors and markings to darken. (If you are interested in this whole process, I witnessed the it from start to finish several years ago and took a series of photos that documented the process in a blog posting called Metamorphosis of a dragonfly.)
Walter was eventually able to determine that this was a female Uhler’s Sundragon (Helocordulia uhleri). My final photo shows an adult female Uhler’s Sundragon that I photographed later that same day, so you can easily see that the dragonfly was not yet done with her transformation when we photographed her.
How did Walter do it? For the answer to that mystery, check out Walter’s blog posting today called Uhler’s Sundragon dragonfly (emergent female) for the fascinating story of his detective work and additional photos and details of our encounter with this emerging dragonfly.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Wow. Great opportunity and photography
Thanks, Peter. I always try to keep my eyes open and my camera at the ready–I sometimes literally cannot believe the things that I manage to see and, if I am lucky, to photograph.
Would you like to see me pull a pond hawk out of my nymph ? A rather remarkable transformation to be sure. Thanks Mike.
Wow! That is incredible!! Over the weekend I went to a wetlands festival and saw a dragonfly nymph for the first time. I can’t even imagine seeing the transformation. How neat!
It really is an amazing experience to see that kind of drama unfold right before your eyes, almost like seeing the development of a fetus at high speed.
Amazing as always Mike! I love how you give the drama involved in obtaining the photos. Thank you!
Thanks, Suzette. Some days I feel like I am using my photos as merely a pretext in order to write down my experiences. I initially thought I would use my blog simply as a gallery of my photos, but discovered rather quickly that it was as much fun to express myself in may words as in my images.
Well, I am glad you chose the latter. Have a great day, Mike📸
Thanks, Suzette.
[…] Emerging dragonfly – a blog post by Michael Powell. […]
Great photographs, Mike.
Thanks, Dan.
‘Development of a fetus at high speed’. Perfect analogy, and yes different too. 😂😂😂. Wonderful images too 😃😃
Truly miraculous!
Amazing you came across this! Great images.
Thanks, Chris. I managed to come across a similar situation for a different species about a week later and will probably do posting about it soon. 🙂
Nice picture uh have clicked
Thanks.
Really beautiful .. what a miracle each and every one of them are!
What an amazing experience for you and Walter! When I saw your title I wanted to stop and get every detail, but also knew I could not do your work justice right then. If I had seen that in my ignorance I would have assumed that dragonfly just ate something that was in that shell. Silly me. That exoskeleton reminds me of our millions of billions of cicadas about to emerge here. Thanks, Mike. Good work!!
I am waiting for the cicadas. I think they will be in my area. In some species like the cicadas, the exoskeleton looks just like the creature that will emerge, while with dragonflies, there are big changes that take place after they emerge.