The Small Eco-System Of The Wadi

I was searching for the largest lizard in the UAE – Jayakari’s lizard – which lives in the Hajar Mountains.

This is the only mountain range in the UAE. Almost every part of this range is bone dry, barring a few wadi pools.

I was climbing by the second dam near Hatta. As I wanted to get rid of the scorching heat and baked rocks, I climbed down towards a wadi.

Here I found a few square metres of land surrounding the stream had been converted into a mini-ecological system teeming with life.

This pool attracted many dragonflies. I saw quite a good number of dragonfly larvae swimming through shallow water and hunting tadpoles.

Female dragonflies lay their eggs underwater – more than a metre down in some species, just under the surface for others.

The eggs transform, not into larvae as with most other insects, but into a stage called nymph.

A dragonfly spends between one and 10 years as a nymph, passing through stages known as instars.

Nymphs are underwater hunters, and eat whatever they can find, including small toads and fishes.

Near the end of its cycle, a nymph crawls over a submerged vegetation, reaches a few centimetres above the water surface, starts drying the body covering and sheds its exoskeleton during which time it passes through its last instar and emerges as an adult dragonfly.