Dragonflies are predators, both during the aquatic larval stage, when they are known as nymphs, and as adults. Up to several years of the insect's life is spent as a nymph living in freshwater; the adults may be on the wing for just a few days or weeks. They are fast agile fliers, sometimes migrating across oceans, and are often but not always found near water. Dragonflies are hemimetabolous insects; they do not have a pupal stage and undergo an incomplete metamorphosis into adults. Eggs laid inside plant tissues are usually shaped like grains of rice while other eggs are the size of a pinhead, ellipsoidal or nearly spherical. A clutch of eggs may number as many as 1,500, and they take about a week to hatch into aquatic nymphs or naiads which moult between six and fifteen times (depending on species) as they grow.[1] Most of a dragonfly's life is spent as a nymph, beneath the water's surface. The nymph extends its labium (a toothed mouthpart) to catch animals such as mosquito larvae, tadpoles and small fish. They breathe through gills in their rectum, and can rapidly propel themselves by suddenly expelling water through the anus.
