When the Embodiment of Evil Depends on your Perspective

We're deluding ourselves when we look at a pond or lake.

We look at that still water - perhaps shimmering on a hot summer's day - and think peace, perfect peace.

But under the surface it's a teeming world of life and death struggles. Could you tune your ears to the right frequency all you would hear, in the immortal words of Norman Clegg, would be the same of small creatures munching on small creatures.

In April, tadpoles are small, delicate and vulnerable. To a tadpole, the dragonfly nymph is a vicious, munching monster - a miniature incarnation of all of Dr Who's worst nightmares. To a baby tad, a baby dragonfly is evil incarnate.

By late June, the tales are turning. The remaining tads have been munching on algae, duckweed and other tadpoles. They are now beautifully tuned killing machines. The dragonfly larvae, on the other hand, ain't changed much. The predator is now the prey. The odds are about even, but increasingly weighted towards the tad

By the following summer, the change is complete. The tadpole is now a beautiful, green and brown, perfectly formed one ounce frog. The dragonfly has changed to its adult form - if things have so worked out, it may have mated, passing on the genes that got it past that under-pond apocalypse. But now it's a battered, bruised, failing flying machine - its wings wrecked by weather and exertion. When it comes across its old adversary, it's simply lunch.

Sometimes, the embodiment of evil depends upon your perspective.