Spent a few hours this afternoon checking out new collecting sites and chasing stream fishes. A couple stops turned out to be duds, running water-wise. At one stop the map had promised a small stream but I got one monster-sized beaver pond/swamp. I was disappointed, but access was easy and it would have been just wrong not to check it out. Evidence of working man lunches, and the semi-scattered, mostly-mummified remains of a pitbull on the approach to the water didn't bode well. But what the heck, let's net some gambusia and maybe pick up a surprise or two.
The upland chorus frogs and American toads were calling- two sounds I love, so that was going for it. Got to the edge of one part of the pond, and the water looked like this...

According to my thermometer the water was 71F. Considering there was 0 turnover, the sun had been shining on it all day, and temps that afternoon were into the 70s I didn't doubt it, though it surprised me some.
Spent 20 minutes sweeping from the shore - no way I was getting in there when I was by myself! - and I didn't net so much as one single fish. But the absence of fish meant plenty of these guys...


I have never seen larval salamanders with such chubby bodies, tiny legs and massive gills.
Then this bad-boy turned up...

Is this a dragonfly naiad of some kind? Two or three times it opened its jaws and put them around the sallie's body, but never did pierce it that I could tell.