Fun with Flora, Fauna, Fungi (& Food): Ways to Help Dragonflies and Damselflies

Ways You Can Help Dragonflies :

You can participate in the SciStarter (http://www.scistarter.com/) project OdonataCentral(click on link to view), http://www.scistarter.com/project/288-OdonataCentral where you take pictures of dragonflies and send them. If you enter ‘dragonflies’ in their search box, you shall see the name OdonataCentral.

Ways Dragonflies Can Help You:

If you have ever been out for a while during the summer, you have probably been bitten by a mosquito. Dragonflies eat adult mosquitoes and other sorts of small flies such as gnats and midges. Dragonflies start their lives as nymphs in the water, and they eat the larvae of mosquitoes, which also dwell in water. Dragonfly nymphs are extremely ferocious, and will even eat small fish or tadpoles, given the chance. There is a picture of one shown below. After around several months(or years, depending on the species!), the nymph will climb out of the water, and an adult dragonfly shall emerge. As you can see from the picture, the wings of the dragonfly are rumpled. After its first minute out of water, the wings will fill up and open, never to be closed again.

This is a dragonfly emerging from its immature phase.

One way to help all insects is to not use pesticides or weed killer. Pesticides do kill pests such as aphids, hoppers, and caterpillars, but they also kill the insects that you want there. Praying mantises eat all sorts of potential pests, and ladybugs eat aphids. Butterflies will pollinate your flowers and help them reproduce. Whenever you catch a ladybug, always release it in your garden. It may end up eating all the aphids on your plants. Pesticides are not only harmful to insects, but to other organisms. Pesticides can wash into rivers and devastate whole ecosystems, especially those dependent on streams. Only a small amount of runoff could affect a whole stream, wiping out frog populations. By not using pesticides, you can prevent this! Also, whenever you go to the supermarket, whatever produce you buy should be organic. That means that the plants are grown without use of pesticides. This is even healthy for you!

This is a super microphotograph of a dragonfly's eye!

Dragonfly larva

Have you ever tried to catch a dragonfly? I bet you weren’t successful! Why are they so difficult to catch? Dragonflies have huge eyes that take up most of their head! This means that dragonflies can see ahead of them and to their sides! That is a very valuable weapon, because dragonflies have a lot of possible predators, such as frogs and birds, among others. The following pictures are microphotographs of dragonfly eyes. If you have tried to catch a dragonfly, you may have tried coming from the side. This would not work. Armed with spherical eyes and quick flight, the dragonfly would escape easily. The best tactic to use in catching a dragonfly is to approach it from behind, and very slowly. Then throw your net over it.

Dragonflies also have strong mandibles, and are capable of biting. Whenever you transfer a dragonfly into your bughouse, it is advised to do the butterfly trick, but instead stick the net inside the bughouse and gently push the dragonfly in. Have you ever seen a dragonfly dipping its abdomen in the glass car window? Dragonflies lay their eggs in water, and the reflections of the car window confuse dragonflies and make them think that the reflective glass is actually water. When you see a dragonfly dipping its abdomen in real water, you shall know that it is laying eggs.