You may not see the dragonfly that’s hovering behind you— but rest assured it sees you.
With roughly 30,000 lenses in each of a dragonfly’s two eyes, these ancient flying predators see their world in high definition and nearly 360 degrees at once.
“They’re really a visual animal,” said Kurt Meade, who literally wrote the book on dragonflies in Minnesota (“Dragonflies of the North Woods,” five-star rated on Amazon). “They have no sense of smell, no sense of taste, no sense of hearing, and no sense of humor.”
Especially if you’re a flying insect.
Meade, who works for the DNR, held about 15 visitors at Bear Head Lake State Park enthralled last Sunday, one of several nature workshops offered at the park during the summer. Meade knows dragonflies, and closely related damselflies, well, and how to keep audiences engaged in his fascinating subject.
These dragons of the air, which legend (and even some science) says are the descendants of real dragons, are ancient beyond our ability to truly grasp. “We have fossil records in Germany that go back to 300 million years ago,” said Meade. “That predates the dinosaurs by a lot.”
In those early days of Earth’s history, the atmosphere was richer in oxygen and insects like the dragonflies were closer to real dragons, with wingspans nearly three feet across and mouthparts that could easily rip off your ear. You definitely wouldn’t want one of those beasts hovering over your head, even if they couldn’t breathe fire.
Because insect breathing systems are not as efficient as other modern organisms, they’ve gotten smaller as the oxygen levels in the atmosphere declined over the eons. Yet for the insects of our modern era, dragonflies—which capture their prey on the fly with their spiked legs and devour them with their large mandibles— they are no less deadly.
While we see dragonflies primarily as aerial predators, Meade noted that most species spend the vast majority of their lives as aquatic nymphs. If the term “nymph” sounds benign, think again. “They are predators both in their aquatic form and in their adult form,” said Meade. “And they’re pretty non-discriminate,” and will even eat other dragonflies.
He said he once put a dragonfly nymph in his daughter’s goldfish bowl overnight, just to keep it alive, only to find the three goldfish dead and partially eaten by morning.
The nymphs typically capture their prey with an extendable mouth part that shoots out so fast, it can capture and haul in prey faster than a human eye can detect it, noted Meade.
Mostly, these nymphs focus on invertebrate prey and will often feast on mosquito larvae, which makes them an ally in our continual battles against these flying pests.
While dragonflies have a reputation as bold hunters, their more diminutive and less brash relatives, the damselflies, can be identified by their normally bright colors, their long, narrow abdomen, and their habit of holding their wings together upright over their backs, rather that straight out, opposite each other, like a dragonfly. You’ll most likely find these smaller carnivores flitting damsel-like along the edges of streams or lakeshores, almost always close to water.
Weather dependent
While dragonflies may be bold hunters, they prefer to hunt in pleasant weather. So the cool, cloudy, and breezy conditions that greeted workshop attendees limited their success in finding actual dragons in the wild. Meade and his entourage checked out both Bear Head and Norberg lakes, but their discoveries were limited to two small meadowhawks, a genus of smaller dragonflies often found in our area in late summer, and a single damselfly.
They’ll be waiting for warmer and sunnier days before venturing back out on the prowl again.