Tony Abeyta’s magical dragonflies shimmer towards the heavens.
Tony Abeyta, Navajo, Dragonfly Constellation, oil and sand on canvas, n.d. La Fonda Hotel Collection.
“Dragonflies are messengers. If you lived in the desert, they would take you to the sanctuary of water,” Tony Abeyta said in reference to this painting. A pre-eminent Native American artist, Tony frequently paints dragonflies as tranquil and fragile beings that he finds calming. “They ease my mind,” he says. “They are nature’s way of saying everything is going to be okay.”
This painting is included in my article in New Mexico magazine, Here be Dragons, mentioned in this blog.
Katharine Kagel created some dragonfly cookies for my birthday last year at her famous and fantastic restaurant, Café Pasqual’s, in Santa Fe.
Dragonfly cookies from Café Pasqual’s
She can get excited about dragonflies, too, or perhaps my enthusiasm rubbed off. It was a tough call whether to eat the cookies, share them or save them. I decided to do all of the above, then I photographed them, including the thematically appropriate wrapping paper. Thanks, KK!
This position is unique in the insect kingdom: the heart-shaped commingling of mating damselflies.
Mating Bluets, Rio Arriba County, July 3, 2020. Photo Kitty Leaken.
This pair of bluets in copulatory position, also called the wheel, shows the male on top in their rendezvous above the water. Following courtship (more on that to come), the male flies over and grabs the female from behind. She can choose whether to mate with him or not, knowing by touch if he is of the same species. He clasps her neck with the tip of his abdomen, sometimes with a bite to subdue her. The tip of her abdomen, where her eggs are, then swings around underneath to connect with his penis. They will remain in tandem linkage, perched or flying about , for a few seconds, minutes or hours.
The definitive guide, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West, Princeton University Press, by Dennis Paulson supplied these details. He added, “If sperm from another mating is already present, the male removes or flushes out much of it, thus making it highly likely that his sperm will fertilize her eggs.”
Females can fake death to avoid aggressive males (Why Female Dragonflies Go to Extreme Lengths to Avoid Sex, National Geographic, May 2017) It’s called sexual death feigning and has been observed in the Swiss Alps, where female Moorland Hawkers can freeze mid-air, crash to the ground and lie motionless. When the male is gone, they get up and fly away.
Find yourself by a pond on a hot summer afternoon and wait for the magic to begin.
Blue-eyed Darner, (Rhionaeschna multicolor), Santa Fe County, July 12, 2020. Photo Kitty Leaken.
You will spot a flash of movement. Then, in a blink, another. It is a brave insect, dancing around its watery home. It might zoom over, hover, perch on a reed nearby. You might gasp when, for one sweet moment, light ripples across a dragonfly’s gossamer wings. Then another, helicoptering across the pond. Iridescent blue damselflies flit near the shoreline, a red skimmer alights on a blade of grass.
It is the dragonfly dance: a feisty, diving, cavorting choreography of gem-like insects on an aquatic stage.
The dance is riveting, performed in a natural theater, and it is complex, mystical and transformational.
You recognize a Blue-eyed Darner who just won’t rest. His dance is a territorial patrol: seeking airborne prey, courting a female, or defending against rival males. In the mating rendezvous, the male and female grasp each other to form a heart-shaped circle. This is a tango, often done in on the fly, in clenched tandem. Once released, females dip over the water in a tap dance while ovipositing — laying eggs — often their last dance in the free world. Perhaps you are witness to the miracle of metamorphosis, when a nymph emerges from water into air and pulls itself out of its skin. Its wings slowly unfold, and then it takes its first flight onto the stage.
Or maybe the dance is just a beautiful joy ride under the sun.
Welcome to my blog.
There is more to come on the many ways dragonflies fascinate us. They fly, they see, they mate, and they metamorphose like no others. We study them like curious citizen scientists with apps and information at easy reach. And we honor them in our literature, song, art and prayers.
