Macro This

I took my macro kit* to a local pond to see what I could see. I saw a Bladder Snail attach itself to a Damselfly, for one thing. The Damselfly was not happy about it.

You can ID a Bladder Snail (also called Pouch Snails or Lunged Snails) by the orientation of its opening when you look at the snail with the pointy top of the whorl up. If you draw a line from the top point down through the middle of the snail, the opening will be on the left or right of the line. When the opening is on the left, it's a Bladder Snail (family Physidae).

I returned the snail and the damselfly to the water after photographing. I think I managed to loosen the snail from the damselfly in doing so.

I am learning phone macrophotography as part of a crowdsourced science project I'm piloting with a group of fine folks. The goal is to document the aquatic critters of South Dakota's lakes and streams using iNaturalist as the data platform. It's TBD if enough quality photos, i.e. photos that are good enough to ID the critter to order, can be collected by the general populace using their phones and a few simple tools. And yes, I'm hard line on the phone camera. I know there are macro lenses for cameras that will do a much better job but since this is supposed to be a crowdsourced, I want the tools to be within reach of the greatest number of people. I've seen how much those macro lenses cost, let alone the skills you need to use them well. 

* My macro kit consists of an 8 inch aquatic dip net, pipette, white spoon, several petri dishes, a white towel, several white Rite in the Rain index cards for scale and a clip on Xenvo lens with a back up Easy Macro Lens.