By Bhushan Parimoo
Angels it seems are not visiting any more here these days from the heaven to bless us, which they had been said to be doing it for millions of years. Legend has it that dragonflies were given extra set of wings so that Angels could ride on their back. Wherever a winged masterpiece has been spotted it was presumed that Angle has come down from heaven to bless. Dragonflies are on throes of losing evolutionary process which hampered frequenting of the Angels .What a misfortune that in the process to retrieve Hangul, J&K Wildlife Protection Department has ignored other species. The other day an Environmentalist teacher, mother of two young children shared her predicament worth pondering and cause of serious introspection for all the Naturalists. She makes it a point to spend as much time she could manage with her children and narrate apart from Fairy tales her childhood grooming with the nature. Playing with butterflies ,Dragonfly ,watching Birds, waiting chicken to come out of eggs, nets feeding new-born being feed in the nests, fish in streams, brooks , jumping over it and climbing trees and Swing to enjoy nature unmindful what lay ahead in the womb of future. Once shared how children of her time used to tie a thread on the tail of Dragonflies and chase them while it flew along with other children.
Dragonflies used to be found in plenty in number everywhere in the state to keep children in joyous mood and a purpose to ply in nature. And a piquant situation developed when her children insisted to see them too. And motherly affection looked for it at first instance within the vicinity than net of search got wider with it asked others known to search for it almost entire Jammu division hardly a trace, in just about a couple of decades all is gone. A dragonfly is an inset belonging to the order Odonata, infraorder Anisoptera. Adult dragonflies are characterized by large, multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans up to two feet. Dragonflies start their life in water, therefore they are often found near water: ponds, lakes, canals, streams, rivers and swamps. Since dragonflies are very good flyers they can sometimes be for watching birds, drifting clouds.
Dragonflies have two pairs of wings and they alternate between front right/back left and vice versa, make flying more efficient and faster. their flight is the most stable of any winged animal. While other flying insects have evolved one pair of wings, the dragonfly operates each wing independently. Its four wings come out, and they dry and harden over the next several hours to days. Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying. Dragonflies catch their insect prey by grabbing it with their feet. They’re so efficient in their hunting that, in one Harvard University study, the dragonflies caught 90 to 95 percent of the prey released into their enclosure. The flight of the dragonfly is so special that it has inspired engineers who dream of making robots that fly like dragonflies. Some adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks while others live up to a year. Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them. Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day. A dragonfly called the globe skinner has the longest migration of any insect—11,000 miles back and forth across the Indian Ocean.
To Japanese, it symbolizes summer and autumn and are admired and respected all over, so much so that the Samurai use it as a symbol of power, agility and best of all, Victory. In China, people associate the dragonfly with prosperity, harmony and as a good luck charm. In the Native American Culture it symbolises that Dragonfly spiritually embodies the stripping away of negativity that holds us to achieve our dreams and goals. There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies,. In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other. At the end of its larval stage, the dragonfly crawls out of the water, then its exoskeleton cracks open and releases the insect’s abdomen, which had been packed in like a telescope.
Department of wildlife protection since its establishment 1981 as an independent wing has never carried any exercise to know the number of the species, their habitats, local and IUCN status, and worldwide distribution in its National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries, Conservation Reserves and Wetlands . Dr. W.L. Abbott who visited Kashmir between 1891, 1895 and in 1915 on number of occasion worked on Kashmir Dragonflies. Dr. Bakshi Jehangir has made mention of a score species to rely upon some of these are 1. Aeshna mixta – The Migrant Hawker 2. Anax parthenope – The Lesser Emperor 3. Cordulegaster bidentata – The Sombre Goldenring 4. Crocothemis erythraea – The Scarlet Darter 5. Libellula quadrimaculata – The Four-Spotted Chaser 6. Ophiogomphus reductus 7. Orthetrum brunneum – The Southern Skimmer 8. Orthetrum cancellatum – The Black-Tailed Skimmer 9. Orthetrum taeniolatum/hyalinum – The Small Skimmer 10. Orthetrum triangulare – The Blue-Tailed Forest Hawk 11. Pantala flavescens – The Globe Skimmer/Wandering Glider 12. Sympetrum fonscolombii – The Red-Veined Darter/Nomad13. Sympetrum meridionale – The Southern Darter 14. Sympetrum sanguineum – The Ruddy Darter 15. Sympetrum striolatum – The Common Darter 16. Sympetrum striolatum – The Common Darter Pantala flavescens – Aeshna mixta –The migrant hawker is one of the smaller species of hawker dragonflies. It can be found away from water but for breeding it prefers still or slow-flowing water and can tolerate brackish sites. Anax Parthenope – The Lesser Emperor It is a crepuscular dragonfly, active in the dusk. This species can be easily distinguished by the multi-coloured upper surface of frons and by the shape and relative lengths of the anal appendages. , Cordulegaster bidentata – also known as sombre goldenring or two-toothed this species is identifiable by its black body and yellow rings. Adults are approximately 8 centimetres (3.1 in) in body length with a 10 centimetres (3.9 in) wingspan, breeds in mountain springs.The Sombre Goldenring, Crocothemis common names include broad scarlet, common scarlet-darter, scarlet darter and scarlet dragonfly , can reach a length of 33–44 millimetres (1.3–1.7 in).. The adult male scarlet dragonfly has a bright scarlet red, widened abdomen, with small amber patches at the bases of the hind wings. Also the veins on the leading edges of the wings are red. Females and immatures are yellow-brown and have a conspicuous pale stripe along the top of the thorax. Libellula quadrimaculata theFour-spotted Chaser is a medium-sized, fairly broad-bodied recognised by the two dark spots on the leading edge of each wing – giving this species its name. Ophiogomphus reductus The species mostly have beautifully marked green club-shaped abdomens , more noticeable in the males, Orthetrum brunneum – The Southern Skimmer the adults grow up to 40–45 millimetres (1.6–1.8 in) long. Their dimensions on average are larger than in Orthetrum coerulescens.,
Orthetrum cancellatum – The Black-Tailed Skimmer is a fairly large dragonfly (the length of 47–53 mm, 29–35 mm abdomen, rear wing 35–41 mm.) The chest is yellow or yellowish-brown. The base of the hind wings do not show a dark opaque spots. , Orthetrum taeniolatum/hyalinum – The Small Skimmer It is a medium-sized dragonfly with brown capped eyes, greenish brown thorax and bluish abdomen. Female lacks the powder blue pruinescene. Orthetrum triangulare – The Blue-Tailed Forest Hawk It is a medium sized dragonfly with dark face and bluish eyes. Its thorax is also black with a broad apple green stripe on both sides. Segments 1-2 and 8-10 in the abdomen are black and the remaining segments are pruinosed with azure blue.Globe Skimmer/Wandering Glider species, as its name would suggest, is the most widespread dragonfly in the world. It is also the highest-flying dragonfly, recorded at 6,200 m in the Himalaya. make an annual multigenerational journey of some 18,000 km (about 11,200 miles); to complete the migration, individual globe skimmers fly more than 6,000 km (3,730 miles)—one of the farthest known migrations of all insect species. Sympetrum fonscolombii – The Red-Veined Darter/Nomad can reach a body length of 38–40 millimetres Males have a red abdomen, eyes are brown above and blue/ wings have red veins and the wing bases of the hind-wings are yellow Female are similar but the abdomen is ochre yellow not red, with two black lines along each side. Sympetrum meridionale – The Southern Darter the adults grow up to 35–40 millimetres (1.4–1.6 in) long. The wingspan reaches 52–60 millimetres (2.0–2.4 in). The abdomen of adult males is orange-reddish, without black spots on segments. Adult females are quite similar to males, but the background colour is more yellow.
(The author is a Jammu based environmentalist)
