Dragon or Fly?

Female Common Whitetail hovers over the pond,
making ripples like a helicopter

At NatureFest on Saturday, Dr. Bill Dean helped us explore the aquatic animals usually unseen in the mud and duck weed of Frog Pond. With his net, he dredged up tadpoles of all sizes, small frogs, immature salamanders, and the nymphs of immature dragonflies. Dragonflies are fascinating insects which are mighty predators and fiercely territorial.

Dragonfly nymph eating a tadpole

The dragonfly begins its life as an egg. Adult female dragonflies lay their eggs in water and after about two weeks, the eggs hatch and an immature dragonfly, or nymph, emerges. The nymphs are not pretty like the adults. They have tiny wings and a large lower lip, which they use to catch their prey (often mosquito larvae). Dragonfly nymphs live in the water. As they grow, they molt (shed their skin). Nymphs of some species may take as long as three years to mature. When the dragonfly nymph reaches maturity, it crawls out of the water onto a plant stem. Then its skin begins to split. First the head, then the thorax, then the legs, and then the wings of an adult dragonfly emerge. Soon the newly emerged dragonfly is able to fly. The process takes about two hours. It takes about two days before the adult dragonfly's beautiful colors are fully developed. Adult dragonflies live only a few months.

Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

Dragonflies are ancient insects. They were around before the dinosaurs! Ancient dragonflies may have been considerably larger than those we see today. A fossilized impression of a dragonfly wing, found in a coal mine in England, is the oldest known dragonfly specimen. This dragonfly lived 300 million years ago and had a wingspan of eight inches. The largest known dragonfly had a wingspan of 24 inches (two feet). Today, the largest dragonfly is found in South America and has a wingspan of slightly over seven inches. Other than being smaller, modern-day dragonflies do not look very different from their ancestors.

Eastern Pondhawk

Dragonflies' ability to maneuver makes them able to out-fly their prey. But dragonflies also have the advantage of excellent eyesight. If you've ever watched dragonflies, no doubt you have noticed their huge eyes. Each of the two large eyes is made up of thousands of six-sided units. Together, these smaller eyes enable a dragonfly to detect even the slightest movement. To test this, try sneaking up and catching a dragonfly. You usually come up empty-handed. Although we expect to find them around a pond, dragonflies can travel far beyond the nearest source of water. Sometimes you may see them attacking their reflections on a shiny car window.

Common Whitetail - Male

The common whitetail dragonfly is very, well, common around the Frog Pond. You'll easily recognize it by the white tail, of course.

Female Whitetail

But the female whitetail looks quite different. In fact, I always have to look this one up, since not only does she not have a white tail, but she even has a different number of spots on her wings, which seems odd to me.

Widow Skimmer

When I hear the name "dragon fly," I can't help remembering the small dragons flying around in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. How did they get their names? Many sources say the name comes from their fierce jaws, which they use to catch flies (among other winged insects). Names like Darter, Dancer, Hawk, Glider, and Skimmer all come from the way they fly and hunt. Some are called Darner, based on an old myth that dragonflies would come and sew your lips together, and since some are thin as needles you can see where this might arise.

Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly

If you walk along Little Huckleberry Creek, you will see lots of the ebony jewelwing - a damselfly. Damsels and dragons - this is starting to sound like a video game! Damselflies have four wings, but when they land, they fold up their wings so only two are visible. These dark beauties have an iridescent body that may appear black, blue, green or even bronze depending on the light. The female also has a small white spot on the wingtips displayed when she lands. They love the moist habitat of small streams.

Naturally yours,

~denapple

Mocking Bullies

You know the Mockingbird - a largish gray bird with flashy white wing bars and white on the sides of a long tail. It's best known for its ability to mock or imitate just about anything, repeating a phrase 3 or 4 times before moving on the next birdsong. They have even been reported as mimicking the ring of a cell phone!

And they will go on and on into the night, or at least the bachelors do. As soon as he wins a mate, she will put an end to those rowdy night-long parties.

Mockingbirds are very territorial. The male sits as high as he can in his territory and sings loudly to tell all other male mockingbirds to scram - this territory is taken. If some bird doesn't get the message, he will chase the intruder around until it leaves.

Once a Mockingbird claims a feeder, other species will hang back until it leaves. Of course, fledglings still follow their parents around, begging for food.

This morning, as I arrived at the Nature Preserve, I heard lots of racket in the picnic tree by the Field House. Mockingbirds were shouting and dashing in and out of the tree. In a few minutes, I found the source of their disturbance - Adell, our Red Shouldered Hawk. Mockingbirds are notorious for "mobbing" hawks. That is, they chase and bully the larger bird without mercy. Are they defending their nests? Some think so, but these hawks don't hunt birds as their first choice in prey. I think Mockingbirds are just feathered bullies.

Every time Adell and her mate moved, several Mockingbirds followed them, calling loudly. Now I ask you, how is a self-respecting hawk supposed to sneak up on a mouse in the grass with all that noise going on? Do you think the Mockingbird is really trying to protect the mice these birds normally eat? If this were a Peregrine Falcon, which does hunt birds, they would stay clear, knowing the Falcon would have them for dinner in an instant.

Naturally yours,

~denapple

Flirtatious Flowers

To woo your sweetheart, we all know to give her flowers. The beautiful colors and aromas are sure to put her in a romantic mood. But did you realize that plants also use their flowers' colors and aromas to attract pollinators for reproduction?

Tavia Cathcart, Executive Director at Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve, gave a wonderful presentation for the Kentucky Native Plant Society at their annual Wildflower Weekend at Natural Bridge State Park this weekend. I've never been able to remember which flower parts are the male and which the female, but now I'll remember the difference forever. Here it is, the staMEN has the male parts that produce pollen, while the PISTIL is the female part that will produce fruit after it is pollinated. Just think of "Annie Get Your Gun" to associate pistil and female. Don't you wish someone had told you this in high school biology class?

Plants have adapted their flowers based on the time they bloom and the pollinators available. For example, ginger blooms in the early spring when there are few flying insects yet. Its blossom is next to the ground so ants and other ground insects can reach it. Instead of an aroma that would be attractive to us, it smells like rotten meat, which is attractive to the ants and beetles pollinating it. You have to put out the right welcome mat to attract the right pollinators.

When we talk about pollinators, most people think of bees, of course. Honey bees are the gold medals champions when it comes to pollination. They have little sacks on their legs to stuff the pollen in as they move from flower to flower. They will visit up to 500 flowers in one collection trip. A really ambitious honey bee could potentially visit up to 2,000 flowers a day. And remember, all these hard workers are female (of course!). The bees gather pollen to eat themselves, as it is very nutritious, and to feed their young. Pollinating the flower is just a by-product for them.

Some plants make it easy on the pollinators. They have open blooms, and anything walking or flying close enough will be dusted with pollen. Other plants have deep wells with nectar at the bottom, and only pollinators with long tongues (such as hummingbirds) or long proboscis (such as this nexus sphinx moth) can get a sweet drink as a reward for pollination.

Other plants give the pollinators clues that we limited humans can't even see. Bees can see in the ultraviolet wave lengths, so plants give them landing directions to find the good stuff. Flowers present bulls-eyes and landing strips on the petals, like a flight officer guiding a jet into a safe landing on an aircraft carrier. The blue geranium is in natural light, while the one on the right is in ultraviolet light.

To avoid the competition with other flowers for daytime pollinators, some plants only bloom at night. Bats and moths will fly for miles following their aroma. Think of the millions of years spent in creating these adaptive relationships. Sometimes a plant can only be pollinated by one kind of insect or animal, and if that pollinator should die out, the plant would become extinct too. Remember, as John Muir says, When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Naturally yours,

~denapple