Sharing a few more images of the tandem Seaside Dragonlets as they went about their reproductive business.
Dragonlets are in the Skimmer family and are unique in that they can breed in salt water. I suspect that this pond is brackish, with the level human-controlled with water added from a marsh on the tidal Cooper River.
Seaside Dragonlets join together to oviposit. The female dabbed the edge of the pond multiple times, repeating back and forth along several yards ( 1-2 Meters) of the shore. Occasionally they took a break as in the first image above.
I wondered if the little fish were eating the eggs as fast as they were being deposited.
I couldn’t get any decent shots of the entire process; the presence of a rock border hid the water’s edge from my view.
My first post: Seaside Dragonlets Joined Pair
Charleston, SC
August 2, 2021
Quite impressive to see these Dragonflies oviposit. The male usually holds to the female until the eggs are dropped, not taking any risk on his offspring. I’m quite sure that the fish will have an excellent meal.
It was pretty interesting to watch, Greta. And I kept thinking all that effort was not going to produce many offspring. Although I don’t have any idea what the hatch rate might be for any of them.
It’s great that you got so many pictures of the two together, especially in flight.
It was pretty neat to see this pair in tandem, Steve, something I hadn’t witnessed since I’ve been paying more attention to dragonflies.