Feature article: Dragonflies by BK Researched by Brian Kane
Dragonflies! Where do they come from? What do they eat? Do they
sting? Where do they get their name? These are some of the many
questions that may occur to us when hordes of dragonflies appear
in Broome after the wet season each year. There are a lot of
‘folk names’ given to dragonflies such as ‘Horse stinger’ in the
UK. The name may come from from the way a captured dragonfly
curls it abdomen as if in an attempt to sting. Another
explanation was that they could be seen flying round horses in
fields. They were really feeding on the flies attracted to the
horses. Occasionally a fly would irritate or bite a horse enough
to make it twitch or skip about. People seeing it made the
inference that it was the dragon stinging, rather that an unseen
fly biting. Dragonflies are fearsome predators of other flying
insects but this beautiful creature is harmless to humans.
Dragonflies are among the oldest insects on earth, for
fossilized remains show that they exi