Ohio Outdoors: Dragonflies are the jewels of the skies

This month I thought I’d write about some of my favorite insects – dragonflies and their smaller, more delicate cousins – damselflies. They belong to the order Odonata which means ‘teeth’. Members of this order have a three-phase life cycle. Eggs are laid underwater. The eggs hatch into nymphs which look nothing like the adults. These nymphs prey on underwater insects and larva. As they grow they must molt or shed their exoskeletons up to 15 times. With each molt (instar) they gain more features of their adult bodies.

For the final molt, the nymph crawls out of the water. Once it emerges, it’s wings and shell must harden before it is able to fly. Although the length of time spent in the nymph stage varies per species from a few weeks to a year, most Odonata adults only survive for a few weeks, enough time to produce the next generation of flying jewels.