Dragonflies have been wrongly accused of sewing children’s eyes close, striking livestock, they have been called the devil’s darning needles, water witches and snake doctors. Unless you’re a small flying insect, there is nothing scary about dragonflies. They are actually our backyard friends and help out in making a garden wonderful. They actually help out around the garden by gobbling up mosquitoes, flies, and gnats. Their larvae cleanses the pond scum and devour immature mosquitoes, diving beetles, and other water bugs.
Dragonflies are an indicator species, having them around the garden means that the ecosystem is healthy. this is specially true in their aquatic stage and when they are on the prowl of freshwater ponds and streams.
To keep them feeding and flying around our gardens and ponds add water lilies, a dragonfly can lay several thousand eggs a day in water or several hundred in the stems of floating-leaf plants. Before long you will have dragonfly nymphs swimming about in the pond. During mating, the male dragonfly clasps the female. She bends to pick up the sperm at the front of his abdomen. Dragonflies lay their eggs in the water or in water plants. After the eggs have been laid, the nymphs will start feeding using their specialized hinged lower lip to catch pray. The skin of a grown nymph splits open and an adult dragonfly emerges, that is the life cycle of a dragonfly.
There are about 6,500 species and about 500 of them in North-America, many are named for the colors of their iridescent bodies and transparent wings, blue darners, ruby saddlebags, violet tails, ebony jewel-wings, cherry-faced skimmers. Dragonflies show off their colors to attract mates. While females drop their eggs in the water pond, the males stand guard nearby to keep other would-be swains from interrupting the process and to ensure paternity by hanging on to their mates until the egg-laying ends.
Most adult dragonflies survive for a couple of weeks after mating, often they’re exhausted by their sexual acrobatics or fall victim to birds, bats, or frogs. But their offspring known as nymphs or naiads live one to three years in the water, shedding their skins as many as 25 times before they crawl out the water to become adults.
Mosquitoes, horseflies, and other insects should be aware of dragonflies, as they don’t miss anything, specially when it comes to feeding time. Dragonflies are death machines, their mouths are design to grind.
Where will the pond and lakes be without dragonflies, the poetry of life will end without their lovely and interesting mating dances, the colorful creatures will be very missed by those who love to watch them live
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