I love the sound of dragonfly wings in the evening.
From my deck easy chair I savour the whispering clicks of their
translucent wings as they float through the air like prima ballerinas. Such grace.
Such precision. Such great killers.
They move like ballet dancers but are powerful war machines,
intercepting and destroying millions of blackflies, mosquitoes and other flying
terrors that arrive each summer to torment us. They actually catch their prey
with their feet and tear their wings off so they can’t escape. Then they chew
them up with their razor mandibles.
I love them and the work they do. Sometimes when the Irish
whiskey jug accompanies me to the deck I stand shouting: “Attaway. Way to go. Kill
baby, kill!”
Dragonflies are said to have a 97-per-cent success rate in
hunting. A single dragonfly eats hundreds of mosquitoes, blackflies and midges
every day. It can eat its weight in mosquitoes in 30 minutes.
They have a computer-like connection between their tiny
brains and their flight controls. Each of their four wings can operate
independently, allowing them to fly backwards, sideways; basically any
direction that they wish at average cruising speed of 16 kilometers per hour
and top speeds of 30 to 40 kph.
Their heads are pretty much all eyes that give them
exceptional vision, combined with an uncanny ability to focus and zero in on
prey. They are able to select and target a single blackfly among an entire
swarm.
They are said to have the best vision of anything in the
animal kingdom. Humans have three light sensitive proteins that allow us to see
colour and details. Dragonflies have up to 33, which allows them to see colours
that humans cannot even imagine.
Although they are deadly hunters, dragonflies do not bother
with humans. They don’t bite us because their razor mandibles are not strong
enough to break human skin.
It is a strange twist of nature that the much tinier blackfly
is able to cut human skin, allowing it to soak up the resulting blood. Only the
female blackfly bites because she needs blood for laying her eggs.
The blackflies thankfully are almost done for this year. They
usually come out in mid-May and are mostly gone by the end of June. The life
span of a black fly is only three weeks, far too long for many people.
Mosquitoes, however, are with us for the entire summer and
the early autumn. They are continually laying eggs that produce adult mosquitoes
in less than 10 days if conditions are perfect. And they are perfect right now
– 22 to 27 degrees Celsius with plenty of humidity.
Like the blackfly only female mosquitoes bite, or to be
accurate, drill down to get blood for egg development. Females live only one or
two weeks, which of course gives them plenty of time to lay hundreds of eggs
that become new populations.
While blackflies like moving water for hatching, mosquitoes
prefer slow moving or still water. That is why it is so important to get rid of
small puddles of standing water around homes and cottages. Even a Frisbee left
overturned in the rain will collect enough water to become a breeding site.
Dragonflies were among our planet’s first insects and are
believed to have been around for 300 million years. There are more than 3,000
known species of dragonflies, some of which now are endangered because of
habitant loss and pollution, notably pesticides and insecticides.
There is enough concern about and interest in dragonflies
that dragonfly sanctuaries are being developed. In recent years important
sanctuaries have been established in the United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S.
southwest.
Dragonflies are found throughout the world and are important
not just because they eat other flies that irritate us. Their exceptional
vision and flying mechanics have been studied to help advance engineering
innovations.
They also have symbolic importance. For some people they
represent adaptation and transformation. For others, joy and lightness of
being, and yet others, power and poise.
Samurai in Japan see the dragonfly as symbolising power,
agility and victory. The Chinese see the insect as prosperity and good luck.
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