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