This creature, despite its apparently fixed gaze on me, is neither alive nor dead - it is the exuvium (empty skin or exo-skeleton) which a dragonfly once 'wore' during the first few weeks of its life as a nymph. When ready to metamorphose, the nymph climbs out of the water and up a reed out of reach of predators and, over the course of a couple of hours, sheds this skin and becomes a dragonfly. Sadly I had missed this event by a couple of weeks, but the skin was still intact, still seemingly breathing with life like some bizarre creature from outer space.