Dragonfly Nymph and Loss of Mutual Defence

The dragonfly nymph must have thought it had gone to heaven. I'd always thought that they skulked along the bottom or on plants, conducting stealth attacks on anything that moved with their extendable jaws. The dragonfly nymph in my small pond adopted a different strategy. It appeared to float in the the water with its tail pointing upwards, a loose L shape, adjusting its depth at will with minimal movement. It also floated to the surface and extended its gills from the tail and used surface tension to float there. In the absence of prior predators, many of the abundant mosquito larvae were hanging there too. As soon as one came near enough to the nymph it would snatch its jaw out to catch a mosquito wriggler and begin munching away happily, then discard the emptied husk and go on to the next mosquito larva. I'm hoping that the dragonfly larvae will have enough food to mature and hatch this year and that I'm there when they decide to emerge and metamorphose into an adult dragonfly.

President Trump left the G7 Summit without reaffirming the US commitment to action on climate change, much to the chagrin of the other 6. It was quite clear that there was a different in approach - where Europe sees countries working together as a win-win option, The new US policy is more isolationist and sees negotiations in terms of winners and losers. 

Prime Minister Theresa May had put security on the table as a potential bargaining chip in the Brexit negotiations. Today Dominic Grieve, the Tory Chair of Commons intelligence committee, and leading security figures warned that Brexit could deprive UK police of access to key European databases unless the issue was addressed. Grieve said full participation was crucial, even if it meant accepting EU rules and judicial oversight for the European Court of Justice (ECJ), something that would be difficult for some in the Tory party. Sir Hugh Orde, former chief constable of the police service of Northern Ireland, told the Observer that UK membership of EU bodies such as Europol and Eurojust not only allowed access to huge amounts of vital data and meant UK police could set up joint inquiries police from other national forces without delay.