Comments on: Large red damselfly: some great pictures of the larvae http://jeremybiggs.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/large-red-damselfly-some-great-pictures-of-the-larvae/ "If only I had found this website last year when I started my pond!” Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:11:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Jeremy Biggs http://jeremybiggs.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/large-red-damselfly-some-great-pictures-of-the-larvae/#comment-457 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:47:07 +0000 http://thegardenpondblog.org.uk/?p=1482#comment-457 Hi Shona

Hmmm…..it looked like an armadillo – so some kind of a thing with segments.

Five inches is quite big – theoretically too big for a dragonfly larva (even one of the big hawker larvae) – but that seems the most likely thing. They do have hammerhead shaped heads.

If it really was five inches long the only invert that big would be a small crayfish – but they don’t have hammerhead shaped heads.

Can you get any kind of picture? Even a cameraphone snap would do.

Jeremy

]]> By: shona http://jeremybiggs.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/large-red-damselfly-some-great-pictures-of-the-larvae/#comment-456 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:32:43 +0000 http://thegardenpondblog.org.uk/?p=1482#comment-456 I have just seen a very strange creature in my pond and would really appreciate help in identifying it – even if it is direction to a specialist.

It was:
approx 5″ long. Had a mid brown, hammer shaped head, with darker body which tapered off to a point at the other end. The body looked as though it was covered in a kind of shell – like an armadillo.

It was swimming along the bottom of a fairly large (20 ‘ x 30′) garden pond at the edge.

Any ideas?

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