The dragonflies are back in Danang, Vietnam (Photo by maritsch28/Pixabay)
DANANG, VIETNAM – We’ve been seeing a lot of dragonflies around lately, mostly in the morning when we’re swimming at our local pool.
It’s possible, I suppose, that they’ve been around all the time, but I’ve only just noticed them again within the last month or so.
I’ll be leisurely swimming the backstroke, gazing up at the trees and buildings around the pool as I slowly make my way back and forth in the cool water.
The clouds overhead drift lazily through my field of view, shaping and reshaping themselves into all manner of fantastical forms.
A squadron of dragonflies appears out of nowhere
Then suddenly I’m dive-bombed by a squadron of dragonflies.
They don’t really fly their sorties in a set formation, preferring instead to perform aerobatic maneuvers one by one as they zoom in for a closer look.
They’ll hover briefly, a foot or so from my face, then zoom off just as quickly as they appeared… like a multi-winged spaceship leaping into hyperdrive.
I’m not an entomologist, so I can’t be certain they’re all dragonflies; they could be damselflies. I’m not quite sure what differentiates one species from the other. They all have the same opposing pairs of lacy, transparent wings attached to a long, slender body with bulging eyes stuck onto their swollen heads.
They have some curious behaviors
As I’ve watched their reconnaissance flights crisscrossing over the pool, I’m intrigued by some of the behaviors I’ve observed:
They’ll often fly just above the water, repeatedly dropping down to touch their tails to the surface, just for a moment.
Another common sight is to see two of them flying in tandem, linked together by their long tails. I guessed that this “daisy chain” flight might be part of their mating process, a guess confirmed by some quick online research.
As for dipping their tails in the water, my research told me they’re laying eggs. I would think the survival rate for eggs lain in a swimming pool is pretty low, but there sure are a lot of dragonflies around. They must be hatching from somewhere.
Was that dragonfly wearing saddlebags?
One morning I noticed another curious thing when one of the dragonflies flew past my head. It appeared to be wearing what I could only describe as saddlebags.
Yeah, I know… weird, right?
But that’s exactly what it looked like… at least in the fleeting glimpse I got as the critter flashed by my face. Large rectangular dark patches at the base of each wing, right where they attach to the body. The patches were symmetrical, like a pair of saddlebags hanging on either side of the thin body.
I questioned what I had seen. Maybe it was just a shadow, or maybe a unique variation in natural coloring.
Soon I saw the same dragonfly again (or at least a lookalike; there have been so many of them flying about these past few weeks).
Sure enough, I saw the same dark “saddlebags” as before. Now I was really curious. Maybe the “bags” were pollen clusters like the ones that form on honeybee legs.
Maybe I could learn more online
I couldn’t wait to go back online and search for “dragonfly saddlebags.”
And I quickly learned that there really is a species of dragonfly known as the “black saddlebags” (Tramea lacerata). The first reference I discovered said it’s found “throughout North America.”
But this is Vietnam. Could the specimen I saw be one of a kind… the lone example that somehow found its way to Southeast Asia? A hitchhiker, perhaps, on a cargo ship from America’s West Coast?
Nope. I soon found another reference that said dragonflies from the genus Tramea, the “saddlebag” genus, are found “in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe.”
Mystery solved. No need to doubt my aging eyesight. No need to quarantine a suspected invasive species. There really is an Asian dragonfly with saddlebags.
I learned even more about these unusual insects
My quest for those answers taught me more about dragonflies than I ever needed to know, including a few dragonfly legends:
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- Dragonflies symbolize prosperity, harmony and good luck.
- If a dragonfly lands on you, you’ll hear good news from someone you care about.
- Seeing a mating pair of dragonflies means that love is on your way.
- And if you see a dragonfly in your house, it means you need to pay attention to small things in life so you can evolve into a better human being.
I wonder what it means when they stop overhead to give me a closer look…