When I found this strangely shaped dark 'pod' floating near the surface, I thought of a vanilla bean pod - it looked exactly like a seed case, with one end tapered as if it had been attached to a plant by a petiole.
Of course, I had to get a closer look, and that's how I noticed the segments on the 'pod' and checked a little further ... to discover that this is the larval stage of a black soldier fly (Stratiomidae), and that the 'petiole' is actually an elongated segment used as a breathing siphon in aquatic species.
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