July 19, 2009 - Mosquito Hawks

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

A mere three hundred million years ago, giant winged predators cruised the steamy Carboniferous swamps of Pennsylvania. Those tree and fern swamps have long since changed into coal beds and the insects with three-foot wingspans are now a tad smaller. But they still patrol swamps, pond edges and wet meadows looking for a meal. Dragonflies have something of a bad reputation. Sometimes known as devil’s darning needles they were once thought to sew shut the lips and eyes of someone who told lies. Another bit of folklore had it that “snake doctors” protected against snakebite. It’s not surprising however, that another nickname for these agile predators is mosquito hawk. Dragonflies chow down on a large number of mosquitoes and other insects as they fly along looking for food much as their larger ancestors did millions of years ago.
 
This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.