Dragonfly Nymphs

These bizarre-looking things are a couple of dragonfly nymphs that had emerged from the pond at my grandmother's. Dragonflies are have hemimetabolous life cycles, which means they have a very short pronymph stage, before developing into a nymph that partially resembles the adults but has wing buds as opposed to fully developed wings. This is different to holometabolous insects, such as moths and butterflies, which have life cycles characterised by a reduced larval stage and quiescent pupa before developing into an adult.