Delicate and deadly world of dragonflies!

Delicate and deadly world of dragonflies! 

                                    - Vinod M Kumar 

Green Marsh Hawk preying on Wandering Glider

 It’s been only a month since I am aware of the fact that dragonflies are carnivores. When I heard it for the first time during a butterfly survey at Coimbatore, I was really surprised and more curious to learn about them. Monsoon season is almost going to end and it’s been a very good year as far as rainfall is concerned. I have been observing a lot of dragonfly activity in and around the campus past couple of weeks but never really got the time to photograph and identify them. Today we were supposed to go for a wetland field trip but because of heavy rainfall which started yesterday night and continued till today early morning, the programme was cancelled. Thanks to the monsoon weather I was not really in the mood to study either. So I decided that I will start identifying some dragonflies.

Green marsh hawk mating

Within a few minutes into the activity, mating of Green marsh hawk (Orthetrum sabina) caught my attention. Dragonflies do have attractive mating position forming a heart or wheel posture. I also saw some Ground skimmers (Diplacodes trivialis) and as the name suggests they are always found close to the ground. Males are bluish while females are yellowish green. 

Ground Skimmer (Female)

Ground Skimmer (Male)

The very conspicuous, Wandering glider (Pantala flavescens) were also in abundance. Do you know, recent studies have indicated that this species has the longest recorded migration among insects. So they are rightly called as Globe skimmers. 

But the most interesting observation was of a Green marsh hawk preying on a wandering glider. Initially, I thought it was just a mating of two individuals but noticing that it’s two different species I realised it must be a cannibalistic behaviour. It took around fifteen minutes for the green marsh hawk to devour the whole wandering glider.  And when it is just finished, I noticed another green marsh hawk catching its prey. Some ants do got a sumptuous meal of a wandering glider, which might have got injured by a green marsh hawk.

I spent two hours today trying to identify some dragonflies, but I have only identified three species in the campus.  All the observations I made today have certainly increased my interest towards dragonflies. Now I am certain that I will come up with more species and interesting observations in the future. 

Wandering Glider