Lab work

I've been doing a bit of lab work this week (for my thesis) and now I'm all caught up - HORAY!
this is one of the creatures I've found - it's the larvae of NZ's largest Diving Beetle, Onychohydrus hookeri, and it's massive!

This is the smallest one I found - you can tell its going to get huge from the size of its head - very disproportional like baby humans (and some adults humans, but this isn't a freak show so I'm not going there...)

And here is a big boy - when I caught this I was, at the time, paddling in its pond in nothing but shorts, and suddenly had the sensation that something (or things) were biting my feet and legs... Needless to say I exited as quickly as I could!

It was this big! *Tom holds his hands far apart* and to prove it, here is a photo I took with it and Fenn together - so you can see how big it is against her...

See!!!

Such a brave dog is little Fenn...