Doomed Large Red

Poor chap - he's not going to have much of a life is he

There were one or two malforms showing this morning, all with various wing problems but this wee chap had it really bad, as one of his wings was shrivelled and still stuck inside the case, the case was itself stuck to both his left wings and dried on, and he had a kinked abdomen.

Prognosis not good

Techs
D2Xs
180mm macro
ISO100
0.3sec @ f11
1548 + 488RC4 + MC36 + Plamp

PP Bibble Pro & CS3

Thanks for looking - I'll try and post something a bit more cheerie next time

Poor thing, interesting though and exquisitely photographed.

Tim

Great shot Andy and interesting to hear.
What reasons would you give for this cropping up al be it to more than one individual.?

Major

poor thing, it'll provide an easy meal for a bird or dragonfly. Very nice lighting and colours on this one Andy.

Matt

Interesting shot, and superbly taken! I'd have to agree with your prognosis if you were looking for a second opinion.

Nice shot Andy. Natures way- you win some etc , etc,
I think getting too dry on emergence can cause this . Carry a spray around with you !
Cheers
JohnR

Great shot Andy - wonderful colour and detail Indeed not much of a chance for this one.

Dave

Cracking detail and b/g here - and a good tale to boot.



Mark

Nicely done Andy, I believe John could be right....

John/Phil - I do carry a water spray with me all the time and this little chap had a few liberal doses - I even went so far as to clip the reed stem off at its base and then found an iris stem in the shade and got him to move from one to the other and gave him another dose before I left.

But I hold little hope for him, the left upper wing was like a rope that had been soaked with superglue - absolutely rock hard.

In reply to Majors question there's a couple of potential reasons I can think of - first could just be the suns heat just drying them too quickly, and the second could be that we should be reaching the end of the Large Red emergence for 2008 and the ones 'hatching' now are those that have had poorer feeding throughout their 'life aquatic' - maybe this effects them somehow; it would make interesting research for someone, BUT NOT ME as I'm FIK

Great shot Andy!
Also the story-telling makes thing clear!

Well done!

Greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Nice work indeed Andy, it really is just one of Nature's anomalies, even other animals have similar problems. My work with reptiles has seen lizard species and the odd snake being 'strangled' by their own skin when it hasn't shed properly. Sometimes around the abdomen and the animals can't feed.. As has been said, survival of the fittest and it will become a meal for something else. Nicely seen and taken and thanks for sharing with us.

Brett.

Hi Andy,

Thanks for explaining what was happening in the image! Interesting stuff! Fantastic capture and expertly done!

Beautifully taken and an interesting story

Dave

Expertly taken Andy, and yet more useful info to educate myself with

Alan

It's a hard world and no mistake - like falling over ten feet from the tape in a marathon. All the hard work done. Great shot BTW.
Eric