National Geographic: The Body Changers Page #2
- Year:
- 2000
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With a secret weapon
locked and loaded,
the dragonfly nymph
waits for an opportunity.
Folded up under the nymph's head
is a hinged lip with a grasping tip.
This tadpole's dreams of frogdom
are dashed.
a chemical is released
which fellow tadpoles
take to heart or to tail.
In two weeks, tadpoles in the area
transform remarkably.
Their tails turn a shade of red.
The colored tail may protect tadpoles
from attack
like a neon sign flashing "Don't Eat."
Why this works, no one is sure,
but there's no need to turn tail
with a tail turned red.
The pond is abuzz with
changing bodies.
Not only are tadpoles about to
turn into frogs,
they've already changed colors.
At the age of five weeks, tadpoles,
both red- and clear-tailed,
shed their underwater ways.
Rear legs emerge slowly.
Front legs pop out of gill slits.
The tail is absorbed.
This frog may not have turned into
a prince,
but the tadpole's transformation
is no less astonishing.
An air-breathing, bug-eating,
lily-hopping, sweet-singing adult
has emerged from a silent
scum-sucking swimmer with gills.
Now is the dragonfly nymph's time
to change.
It's been lurking in the shallows
by the shore,
waiting for just the right moment
Tonight is perfectly calm,
since rain or wind could dislodge
the dragonfly at a vulnerable moment.
The nymph has crawled out of the water
and fastened itself to a stem.
It is now committed to the air.
A brand new creature
emerges from the old.
The husk of the nymph splits open.
At first, its goggle eyes look like
deflated beach balls.
But soon they are pumped up
to full size,
some of the keenest eyes
in the insect realm.
In the remaining hours before dawn,
into its soft, wet wings,
doubling their length.
The dragonfly has changed from
a jet-powered aquatic hunter
armed with a hydraulic spear
to a peerless aerialist
that will stalk on the wing.
About two hours after emerging,
Once master of the pond bottom,
the dragonfly now controls
the air space above.
No other insect devotes as big
a share of its body weight
to flight muscles as the dragonfly.
Scuba certification has been traded
in for a pilot's license.
As larvae,
dragonflies once hunted tadpoles.
Adult frogs sometimes have the chance
to even the score.
on the wing.
the occasional whiff
if now and then you connect with
a solid double.
Just as body changes can take place
in individual creatures,
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