This is a male Dobsonfly and they are huge! Grace found him on my parents deck, near the pool, and at first I was perplexed as to what to even search for as I looked it up. It looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a walking stick. Thank goodness for www.whatsthatbug.com , a great resource for a mom to have in her backpocket or ipod. They actually had put up a picture, knowing that dobsonflies are active this time of year and people would be trying to identify them.
Their larve are called hellgrammites and are used by fisherman for bait. Although the larvae live several years, the adults live only a week and don't eat, just mate and lay eggs. We took pictures but didn't have our nature journals with us.However, we learned something new and took advantage of the find to live out our nature studies.
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