A Bit About Ponds and Dragonflies
Author: ken
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, though, there is nothing scary about dragonflies. They are actually our backyard friends and help out in making a garden wonderful.
They help out around the garden by gobbling up mosquitoes, flies, and gnats. Their larvae cleanses the backyard pond of 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 your gardens and ponds, add water lilies. A dragonfly can lay several thousand eggs a day in water or several hundred on 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 and hatched, the nymphs will start feeding, using their specialized hinged lower lip to catch prey – other insect water larvae. Eventually, 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 of dragonflies and about 500 of them reside 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 and cherry-faced skimmers to name a few.
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 – that is what our dragonfly friends eat. Dragonflies are death machines, their mouths are designed to grind up their prey.
Where would all the pond and lakes be without dragonflies? They bring so much the poetry of life to our world. To see them darting here and there, and to witness their interesting mating dances, are moments of magic for anyone watching. We must preserve our wetlands and keep our dragonflies safe…
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/dragonfly-memoirs-2917647.html
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