Today was the Texas Pollinator BioBlitz at Tandy Hills -- only ran into a few folks, but it's all good -- I still had a blast with those that did come along! Hopefully they learned a little bit about the importance of pollinators. :)

We had a great day for this species and probably saw a dozen or more. They are powerful and large predators. Image 1 shows a male hovering briefly near a female. The male was following the female around and when she would perch he would hover nearby and attempt to mate, but she would take off. Finally she landed near me and I focused on her and the male hovered briefly and I got one shot before they took off again.

Male Pachydiplax longipennis being eaten by Opheodrys aestivus

Like a lot of these predation shots I heard the irregular beat of frantic, chafing wings before locating the scene.

I was taken aback when I first realized what was happening. That quickly wore off though and I was on the ground trying to get as close as possible without disrupting or having any meaningful influence on the situation.

Two great predators. In the end the dasher broke free and clumsily flew off (though he was lucky there were birds looking for an easy catch). I can't say for sure whether or not I played any part in the snake not succeeding in this struggle. If it were venomous I think (though I don't know if venomous snakes spend their venom on dragonflies or if they specialize in more protein-rich options) the dasher would've been done for.

But, the snake maneuvering his jaws to clamp down on the dragonfly gave some room for escape--especially since his jaws were over the thorax and wings, which were already beating trying to escape.