Insects photo
Ondrej Pakan/ZUMA Press/Newscom
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Insects photo

Eye Drops

In the cool of the early morning, insects like this dew-covered blue damselfly move slowly, making it the perfect time to capture them on film. Ondrej Pakan, a photographer fascinated by insects–he describes them as inhabitants of “a world of small monsters”–snapped this shot at Lake Dubnik in Slovakia. Damselflies, often mistaken for dragonflies, spend most of their lives underwater. They live anywhere from a few weeks up to a year as gilled larvae. Even after transforming into air-breathing, winged adults, several species of female damselflies return to the water to lay eggs. While they descend, their hairs trap oxygen bubbles that serve as miniature air tanks; their mates wait at the surface to pull them out when they reemerge.