mae your own larva catchning net
As well as air catching net, it is impossible to buy a factory made water net, but to make your
own is not difficulty. The ideas of this page is just a suggestion, and I think that my ideas can be improved. Please
send me your improvements by mail.
As the air net a water net contains of three parts: the shaft, the ring and the net-bag.
The shaft
This shaft does not need to be specially long, you will probably catch your dragonfly larva at quite shallow water, thus
the shaft does not need to be longer than one meter (approx. three feet). I like to carry as few things as possibly when I
study dragonflies, therefor I use the shaft of my air net even for my water net.
The ring
The ring of a water net must be very stable, but it does not need to be light. In fact it is good to have a quite heavy
ring when you use it in current water. A heavy ring will then be easier to keep near the bottom of the lake or river. I
made my ring from a piece of iron-sheet; 90 cm long (3 feet), 3 cm width (1.2 inch) and 1 mm thick (1/25 inch), but those
measurements are not critical. I formed this metal strip in shape of the letter D. The flat part facing forward. At the
upper part of the front I cut out some teeth, about 1 cm (2/5 inch) deep, those teeth will help you catching even the larva
sitting in the seaweed. In the center of the rear part I drilled a hole for the connection to the shaft. To prevent rust
on the ring and make it less visible for the larva, the ring should be painted. The color is not critical but some dark
color is less visible in the water.
The net-bag
Some of the damselfly larva are very small, thus the net need to have small meshes. Due to stones, sticks and rocks in the
water the net need to be strong. I use a net made of some PVC covered textile material. The plastic cover make it possibly
to make a bag by melting together the net parts with a soldering iron. The bag is preferable quite shallow, my is about
20 cm (8 inch) deep. To connect the bag with the ring I used aluminum rivets with washers at the back side.
Using the net
Now when the larva net is constructed it is just to go hunting for larva, to catch the larva is easy, just put the net into
the water and drag it near the bottom of the water. Carefully examine the mud that is in the net, some larva may be hiding
in the mud. To separate different dragonfly species is difficulty. Keys for dragonfly larva are found in some dragonfly
books, for instance Sveriges trollsländor and A Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain, Europe and North
Africa See my literature page for descriptions.
