A dragonfly crossing a garden shows only the winged part of its life. Before flying, it developed through a very different young stage, usually in freshwater. Protecting the adult’s hunting space therefore answers only part of its habitat needs.
The empty skin sometimes found attached to a waterside stem marks the transition between those lives. Understanding that transition also explains why a pond visitor, a hidden larva and an emerging adult are different kinds of evidence about a place.
Egg, larva, adult: no chrysalis in between
Dragonflies and damselflies belong to the insect order Odonata. Their life cycle has three broad stages: egg, larva and adult. The larva is also often called a nymph. Unlike a butterfly, an odonate does not pass through a separate pupal or chrysalis stage.
David Britton’s Australian Museum account describes eggs laid in or near water and young that grow through successive larval stages before leaving the water and emerging as adults. The young are not tiny replicas of the flying insect: shape, movement and habitat change substantially.
Repeated moulting permits growth within a new outer skeleton. The final moult produces the winged form, rather than another larger aquatic larva.
Underwater hunters that are also somebody’s food
Dragonfly and damselfly larvae have specialised mouthparts that can reach forward to seize prey. A small animal approaching the head can be captured without the hunter chasing it through a long stretch of water.
The NSW Water Bug Detective Guide illustrates extendable mouthparts below the head in both groups. Its broad comparison describes dragonfly larvae as generally shorter and chunkier than damselfly larvae. These are group-level clues, not a complete species key.
The Australian Museum’s account places them on both sides of the food web: they eat aquatic animals, while fish and other predators eat them. Predation is part of that ecology. It does not establish that adding dragonflies will deliver reliable mosquito control, or that every larva targets the same prey.
Dragonfly and damselfly gills are different
The young need to obtain oxygen while living in water, but the two groups do not put their gills in the same place. CSIRO’s Odonata guide distinguishes internal gills in dragonfly larvae from the three leaf-like appendages at the end of a damselfly larva’s abdomen.
Those external structures help explain the familiar three-tailed appearance of many damselfly larvae. They are not little developing wings. Nor does an indistinct photograph showing fewer than three visible appendages establish the animal’s identity: overlap and the viewing angle may conceal features.
Observe only what can already be seen. Identification does not require taking an animal from the water, turning it over or making it move.
Emergence needs a place above the water
When development is complete, a larva climbs onto a suitable support, such as a plant or rock. Its final larval skin splits and the adult works its way out. The cast outer skeleton is called an exuvia; the plural is exuviae.
Sunshine Coast Council’s account by Julie O’Connor explains how the initially crumpled wings expand as body fluid is pumped through their veins. Emerging is a process, not an instant change to a fully hardened flying insect.
This makes the water’s edge part of the habitat. An occupied stem is doing a different job from an empty ornamental margin. Do not touch the animal, remove its old skin, straighten its wings or move its support to improve the view. Watch quietly from an existing safe position.
A pale adult may still be changing
Queensland Museum’s identification account explains that newly emerged adults are pale and their outer skeleton hardens and develops colour. Later appearance can also change as individuals mature, and males and females of a species may look different.
A subdued colour is therefore not enough to declare a different species or an unwell insect. Compare visible structure and broad location as well.
Resting wings need a qualification too. Many dragonflies hold them out, while many damselflies clasp them above the abdomen, but Australian shutwing dragonflies can clasp their wings and some damselflies hold them outspread. The Museum’s examples make a useful point: a familiar shortcut can fail in either direction.
Temporary water and peat swamps demand different strategies
There is no single national timetable from egg to adult. CSIRO’s guide describes development varying with species and place, with some temporary-water species completing it much faster than species spending longer as larvae. A waterbody lasting long enough for one species may not suit another.
Giant Dragonflies, Petalura gigantea, provide an important exception to the pond-swimming picture. Ian Baird’s Blue Mountains research concerns long-lived burrowing larvae in groundwater-dependent bogs, swamps and seepages. The study found the species in several kinds of swamp, rather than one uniform wetland setting.
For these larvae, wet ground and the water supplying it matter even where a visitor sees no open pond. That does not mean any damp garden contains Giant Dragonflies. The example concerns a particular species and specialised habitats in the NSW coast and ranges, including the Blue Mountains; it is not a recipe for relocating larvae or building a substitute home.
An adult visit and a cast skin answer different questions
The Australian freshwater Odonata profile explains that strong-flying adults can occur well away from water and can recolonise suitable waters. A dragonfly above a lawn does not, by itself, prove it developed in the nearest pond.
An identified cast skin associated with emergence is more direct evidence of that developmental transition. Even so, one skin is not a census, a complete breeding history or a water-quality certificate. The same profile records substantial differences in environmental sensitivity within Odonata.
Cairns and colleagues’ 2025 Giant Dragonfly study also explains why absence of visible adults or exuviae can mislead. Larval cohorts may remain present when emergence is not detected or does not occur in a given year, and survey effort affects detection. That is evidence from NSW upland swamps, not proof that every quiet pond contains hidden dragonflies.
Make the next observation about the whole life cycle
From a permitted path or stable bank, record the date, broad place and what you saw: an adult hunting, a possible cast skin on a stem, or an emergence already visible without approaching. Note whether the setting is a stream, pond or swamp and leave uncertain identities labelled as uncertain. A photograph from that position preserves the observation without requiring a specimen.
Stay out of soft swamp ground and water, and leave stems, litter and occupied edges undisturbed. Do not collect larvae or skins, transfer pond water or animals, stock a new pond with wildlife, or help an adult emerge. For another insect life cycle that depends on more than the visible adult, explore the native-bee habitat article.