Suicidal Dragonhunter

I headed out on my late afternoon, diminished-risk-of-sunburn walk to the millpond where, I knew from past experience, I could explore the shadows of the stream below the waterfall. It's been a good locale, too, because for the past couple of weeks, the Dragonhunter dragonflies have been out in force and keeping all of the smaller odonates properly terrorized. These brightly colored, uber-predators belong to the Clubtail group, but only the male members of the species Hagenius brevistylus bear the characteristic club at the end of their abdomens, and compared with other members of the Gomphidae, the Dragonhunter club is considered pretty small. While I observed several males cruising the stream for prey and mates, I noticed one guy do something very unusual: it flew into a small, wet pocket of the waterfall and just sat there on the surface. At first glance, I thought that it might have been intent on committing suicide, but, since it allowed me to pick it up and observe it as close, close range, I had the odd feeling that it was simply spent. Their time as free-flying adults is quite short—a month or two at most—and by the beginning of September around here, the Dragonhunters have laid their eggs and disappeared. Perhaps, as I left this guy to rest on a log, I was bearing witness to the beginning of this end. I hope his genes were already part of next year's H. brevistylus generation.