{"id":6053,"date":"2012-07-30T17:03:34","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T00:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2012-07-31T06:02:43","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T13:02:43","slug":"pump-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6053","title":{"rendered":"Pump it up"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

First, a dragonfly larva—it’s called a nymph—climbs out of the water. Second, the dragonfly adult climbs out of its the larval exoskeleton—it’s called an exuvia. Doing this is quite a trick, for once it emerges, the adult will become much larger: longer abdomen\u00a0and expansive wings. All of this content was initially scrunched up inside the exuvia.<\/p>\n

The exuvia splits open, the adult pulls itself out and then begins to pump fluid into its collapsed wings and abdomen causing them to gradually expand to full size.<\/p>\n

This Pale Snaketail had already pulled its abdomen out of the exuvia by the time my grandson, Finn, pointed it out to me: “Granddad, do dragonflies moult?” The wings are still collapsed and the abdomen is not yet fully extended. The exuvia is the dark shape to the lower right of the dragonfly, and a few minutes before, it fitted inside this.
\n\"\"Gradually the wings and the abdomen expanded as fluid was pumped into them.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Expansion continued and now the wings extended beyond the end of the abdomen.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the wings swung out to the sides. Even so, they have creases in them and haven’t hardened.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the dragonfly tries a short flight. It is still weak and quickly lands again to continue the expansion and hardening of its wings. An hour later it will be off on its way.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  First, a dragonfly larva—it’s called a nymph—climbs out of the water. Second, the dragonfly adult climbs out of its the larval exoskeleton—it’s called an exuvia. Doing this is quite a trick, for once it emerges, the adult will become … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6053"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6065,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions\/6065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}