THE ‘NEW BUTTERFLY’: FAN CLUB FOR THE DRAGONFLY IS GROWING
Field guides make it easy to identify these fearless, helicopter-like insects
Christina Lewis loves dragonflies so much that, for 20 years, she has regularly tramped into forests and wetlands just to watch them fly, land on her and buzz around, unafraid, like little metallic helicopters.
They have “lots of human-appeal, as insects go,” she says. “Not only are they colourful and fun to watch, they don’t sting or bite us, yet are ferocious predators on the nasties that prey on us,” such as deer flies, mosquitoes and blackflies.
More and more, people who go looking for birds and butterflies are hunting for dragonflies as well, and for their smaller cousins, damselflies. In the language of fans, these insects are “dragons” and “damsels.” They come in a whole rainbow of bright colours. They have ridiculous but cheerful names: beaverpond baskettail, unicorn clubtail, calico pennant, cherry-faced meadowhawk, sedge sprite.
And they invite enthusiasts all because some forward-thinking authors decided to publish colourful guide books on these insects a few years ago.
Michael Runtz was bitten by the dragonfly bug when there were no such handy guides and the hobby was definitely less fun.
“I started around 1980, and there were only these big manuals that identified them by venation (patterns of veins on the wings) and genitalia. It was a dull, tedious exercise. Boy, it was tough. You had to look at these veins under a microscope,” he said.
“But (Roger Tory) Peterson revolutionized birding with field guides that everyone could use, and now there are field guides for dragonflies,” says Runtz, who teaches biology at Carleton University.
“With a lot of the birders aging, they know the birds pretty well and they know the butterflies pretty well, so what’s left that is visually stunning?”
There are some 200 dragonfly and damselfly species in Ontario compared with nearly 500 bird species. A typical area has about 100 species.
“That’s not a huge number to learn,” Runtz says.
“That’s the beauty of it. They are found in nearly every habitat. Dragonflies, truly, are the new butterflies.”
The immature nymphs live only in water, but adults can forage into dry forests or fields for food. Others stay near water, often a specific type: ponds for some, fast-running streams for others. And since they live along the edge of many lakes and rivers and are remarkably unbothered by humans, they are not hard to find.
“Many of them can be identified without being captured, especially if you have binoculars,” Runtz says. “And their wings are tough. You can usually hold a dragonfly without damaging the wings, whereas if you pick up a butterfly you can damage its wings.”
Some still have to be captured to be identified by the shape either of the genitalia or of the claspers, the appendages that a male dragonfly grabs a female with.
Like birders, dragonfly fans have their groups that send out electronic messages when an unusual specimen appears somewhere. Runtz recently got a message when a couple of harlequin darners showed up, and he hurried off to see these uncommon dragonflies.
For Christina Lewis, a nurse who has no special training in insects, “it’s fun and exciting, and often it really is a quest or a hunt.
“But watching, enjoying and identifying some of the common species can be done from the comfort of a lakeside cottage dock, a stroll along the edge of a pond or a walk in the woods,” Lewis says.
And since many of these insects live on dry land, “one doesn’t need to muck around in swamps,” she says.
That said, if one really wants to hunt for some of the less common and more habitat-specific species, getting wet feet might be required. But it’s more often a clean, cool river or stream, not a muddy swamp — not a bad way to enjoy a hot summer day.
“The more one learns about them, the more interesting they become,” she says.
Her own favourite is known as the dragonhunter in English, or Hagenius brevistylus in official scientific language.
Lewis says it’s “a big and showy but somewhat lazy dragon that just hangs out in pretty places until it’s time to feed or breed.” It also eats other dragonflies. She likes jewelwings as well — “a family of large damselflies that are not only gorgeous but exhibit intricate courtship and territorial behaviours, and live along lovely streams,” she says.
Runtz has one last piece of dragonfly trivia: An urban legend says the Ministry of Natural Resources breeds them and dumps them out of aircraft to keep down mosquito and blackfly populations.
Just one problem, Runtz says: They’re almost impossible to breed in captivity.
Fun to watch in nature, though.