A pain in the neck

I spent some of this morning investigating the mating habits of the damselfly. It started with a trip to see how the toadlets are getting on (all well) but then I noticed two damselflies involved in some interesting acrobatics; aerobatics even. A quick check on Google and I found out that during mating the male damselfly grips the female around the neck using a pair of claspers at the end of his abdomen: exactly as per the blip photograph. The pair then fly in this configuration until they find the right place for egg laying. Mrs DF then bends her body into some amazing contortion (called the wheel by the biologists) until... well I'll leave that to your imagination (see extra for Mrs DF's first attempt).  What a performance - I think my eyes would bulge too if I had to do all that!