And ofcourse it moved when i went back to snatch it out... hopefully he doesnt eat any of the little guys. Ill keep an eye out for it. Its bright green just like the plants so he has pretty good camouflage.
It is probably laying eggs in there so you will be getting larva too scower the tank for it and eggs and get them out look at my thread don't end up like me
Well hopefully its only the one... I havent been able to find him again.. but i will snatch him out if i do find him. There is far to many plants for him to camouflage on!
Hopefully the wee shrimp will not become his lunch.
Make sure you have your removal tools ready. They're absolute masters of camouflage.
It's a damselfly larvae. Miniature versions of a dragonfly but still great underwater predators for all things small.
Once you decapitate them, they're harmless. I watched my barbs battle with a swarm of the nymphs. Barbs always win, but sometimes it takes a while for them to break free of their jaws.
They're essentially a underwater praying mantis until they turn into adults
Oddly enough that's what I thought at first too. I was like could it be that a spider fell in there? But then I poked it and saw that it was still very much alive. Then began the scouring of the internet to find out what it was.
If you find one in your tank there are more..... They can lay eggs fomr 10-30... I thought i only had 5. when i tore the tank down total found was 15 alive and 2 that i found dead 2 days prior.
You had nymphs, and nymphs can't lay eggs because they aren't sexually mature. You were unlucky enough to get plants from someone who had an adult damselfly go "hog-wild" in their plants before shipping them off to you.
The picture in this thread is actually of a dragonfly nymph, while yours were damselfly nymphs (same insect order but different families). The dragonfly nymphs are bigger, and I'll betting the adult dragonflies don't lay as many eggs as do the damselflies. Damselflies are pretty prolific.
A very cool pic, Trueblu! I love all things, bugs!
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