Dragonflies.

These spectacular fellows with the shimmering gossamer wings are found all over the place but especially near ponds or marshes.  This is largely because in the nymph stage of their life cycle they are these weird looking little aliens living under the water, sometimes for as long as two years.  They await some biological imperative to crawl up onto the stems of grasses and reeds and emerge as the familiar mystical beings of summer.

There are some things you should know about these guys.  First they are amazingly fast and agile, clocking in at around 35 mile per hour.  Second they are fierce and efficient predators, consuming hundreds of other flying insects per day — including mosquitoes — so the dragonfly is your friend.  Oh and scary though they may appear, they cannot sting or bite you.

The fossil record tells the story of an ancient earth which was home to all manner of creatures since extinct.  The dragonfly of 300 million years ago was ten times the size of the modern version and worse, the horrific prehistoric nymph was a foot in length.  Yikes.  Hollywood, take note.

Even if they once had 3-foot wingspans they don’t look much like dragons, so whence the name?  Several theories emerge from the depths of history. 

• Swedish folklore posits that the Devil used the dragonfly to weigh people’s souls, as the ancient peoples of Sweden thought the dragonfly looked a bit like a weighing scale.  Personally, I am not seeing it.  
• The Romanian story is my favorite.  It seems that once St George had slain the dragon threatening the village of Silence, the Devil changed his horse into a giant flying insect.  In the Romanian language, the word for dragonfly translates into Devil’s Horse or Devil’s fly. The Romanian word for devil is ‘drac’, which can also indicate dragon.

Devils Fly is not nearly so lyrical, huh?

Regardless the name, the dragonfly shows us the possibilities of life on earth; how the natural world can engineer a being designed to last nearly unchanged for over 300 million years.   In the long sweep of time, will we be as persistent?  In our rush to change the world can we find the same balance, dancing there in the sunlight on incandescent wings?