Latest / NaturallyScott / E62 Jessica Ware – Dragonflies, Ancient Flight & the Secret World of Insects! 🪰🌎

Transcript

E62 Jessica Ware – Dragonflies, Ancient Flight & the Secret World of Insects! 🪰🌎 · NaturallyScott

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Scott Harris.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the host of Naturally Scott.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, as I say every week, you gotta be tired of hearing it.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about today's guest.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is going to be a really fun conversation.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you, before I started this podcast, not a conversation I ever thought I'd be having.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna be talking about stuff that I wasn't sure that was a path I would ever go down.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um now Jessica was referred to me by Scott Black of Xerxes, and he said she would make an excellent guess um that she is a world expert on dragonflies and very engaging.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So no pressure, but you have to show charm and expertise.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Dr.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica Ware, welcome to the show today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to be here.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think this is just gonna be a blast.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you're with the American Museum of Natural History.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh it's a pretty old museum.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's been around uh since the mid-1800s, right on the corner of Central Park West and 77th Street in Manhattan.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um you weren't there when it opened.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, you would be surprised.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, I was not.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I do feel like I don't know, it's kind of like a time machine in a lot of ways.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you walk through the halls, you can see all the because it's 21 buildings that are kind of stitched together.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: So you can see the progress, you know, that has happened uh as the museum has grown.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you can also see that in the collections.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I've become more fascinated with natural history uh since I started this podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so one of my guests, one of my favorite guests was Scott Edwards, who runs natural history up at Harvard.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: You may know Scott.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Terrific guest and a great guy.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then I've been doing a lot of reading on Teddy Roosevelt, um, you know, and and his work in the natural history world.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for what you do.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it is fascinating, and I'm looking forward to sharing some of this um with the audience.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So now, Scott had positioned you as an expert on dragonflies.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's where he left it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh I believe that, but that also includes damselflies, right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so dragonflies and damselflies together form an order of insects called odonata.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and really we should say dragonflies and damselflies whenever we're talking about them because we often mean both of them.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: But colloquially, I feel like people just say dragonflies and they mean the whole shebang.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But really, damselflies are the ones that are very slender abdomen and they hold their wings kind of behind their back when they're at rest.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then dragonflies are the chunky, thick abdomen uh, and they hold their wings out to the side when they're at rest.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: But often when people talk to me about insects that they've seen, uh, they use the word dragonfly kind of interchangeably for the two of them.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: But really, one is a damselfly, suborder Zygoptera, one is a dragonfly, suborder Anisoptra, and they together they formed the order Odinata.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, you know what?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely fall into the group that just called them all dragonflies.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so now I'm going to start to pay attention.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and see, you've at least educated one person today.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we are we are rolling.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me what when does a young woman wake up and say, you know what I'm gonna do for my life?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna study dragonflies and damselflies.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's other things, but if if I understand correctly, that's the primary.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I focused on for the majority of my career.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's the thing maybe I feel most excited about.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I feel excited about insect evolution in general.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I work on termites and cockroaches.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Also, well, termites are just kind of fancy cockroaches.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: But like when you throw off the covers in the morning and you're like, what am I gonna do today?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: I always am thinking about dragonfly things.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, why is that?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: What how did that start?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I definitely did not know any scientists growing up.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I did not know anybody in academia.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so it's not like it was something that I thought of doing as a child.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I thought maybe I would be a banker or like not a banker, work at a bank, like being a bank teller or something like that, or maybe a teacher.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was an art history teacher at a high school.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I thought maybe I would do something like that because those were the types of jobs that I knew.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um my dad uh worked in sales at a computer company, and my granddad was a purchasing agent for the Board of Education.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Those were the jobs that I knew.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I was really fortunate because my maternal grandparents, uh, we spent a lot of time with them up north in northern Ontario.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm from Canada.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and they were really, they didn't have a lot of like book learning, but they love the outdoors.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so we would go on these hikes and they'd flip rocks over and throw snakes and throw us a click, toss us a snake and point at a dragonfly and get us to kind of ask questions.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: They really encouraged us to think about like, why are there so many different colors of dragonflies?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that interesting?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that interesting that some of them are found in this one pond and not at this river?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that curiosity, like the encouragement to be curious, was like the foundation.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then it ended up being that I like dragonflies and I was really curious about them.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's what I ended up doing my PhD on.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I really think I wouldn't have become a curious person or like if not for them fostering that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they really, I think that's one thing that it was a gift that they gave me was to not be annoyed when I asked questions, but to encourage me to ask a lot of questions and to try and figure things out.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then that's basically what we do in this job, you know, as a natural historian, as a field biologist, you know, we go out, we ask questions, and we try and figure out the answers.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is so cool.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you, I think you and I are gonna become friends because at the end of every show, I close my show with stay safe and stay curious because I think it is a driving force.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um morality and everything, of course, I understand that.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But outside that, to become interested and interesting um requires curiosity.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so tell us for those of us that just look and have never even thought about differentiating between a dragonfly and a damselfly, um, you know, just kind of, oh yeah, there's a dragonfly now.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let me go find something interesting.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you notice the glistening and the colors and things, you know, it um, but tell me why we should be interested in dragonflies.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: What's fun?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: How many of them are there?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: How big do they get?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: How small do they get?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that you would use to excite a fifth grade class if you were speaking to them about dragonflies?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, I would say like the exciting thing about dragonflies is um, well, there's multiple reasons why they're exciting.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: One, they're very, very old.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So probably the first things to fly were a dragonfly or an ancestor to a dragonfly.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: So before bats, before pterosaurs, there was nothing in the sky.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then the first thing to fly was probably dragonfly-like.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we think based on the fossil record.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the earliest flying insects, um, we think, you know, based on some evidence that we have and some estimates we've done with molecular data, probably around 400 million years ago, probably look like a dragonfly.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: We have fossils from the Carboniferous period, which is 350 million years ago.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Giant.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, each uh wing was about 37 centimeters.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: It looks like a dragonfly.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, those are not true dragonflies, they're what we call griffinflies.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're like a proto or pre-dragonfly.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's exciting when you think about it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because to understand flight, to understand everything that happens in the world, which is really kind of revolves around winged insects, the pterygotas, the most abundant group of organisms on the planet, uh over a million described species.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: They all have wings.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're all they're all this group.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, first one, dragonfly-like.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So understanding dragonflies lays the foundation to kind of understand all of the rest of insects.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: But then they are like, I don't know, they're they're really visual.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: They're visual predators.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have that many um examples of excellent vision in insects, but praying mantises and dragonflies, they've really got it.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: And their eyes are like their whole head is their eyes, you know, they can see things, they can see colors, they can recognize.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And because of that, they have a lot of color so they can signal to each other.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they have patterns on their wings and patterns on their body, and that allows them to communicate.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Communication, that's a big one.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like the fact that they're able to communicate messages about what species they are and other types of information about territories and threats, because males and males will fight with each other just with their colors.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of cool.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then what are they looking for with those giant eyes?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're they mostly are using their eye, well, they use their eyes to see each other for sure and to find mates.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they use their eyes in in hunting.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So they're really, really good at hunting.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're top predators in most of the systems that they inhabit.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're like a lion in a way, in the way that they hunt, because they do what's called interception style predation.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So if they see a fly kind of flying in the air, they won't follow the fly.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: They'll like do some math in their tiny little cluster of ganglia in their head, and they will determine where the fly will be in a few seconds, and they'll cut it off at the pass, kind of to to intercept it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they have a really high success rate.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like their success rate uh for catching prey is in the 90%, you know, 95%, 93%.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Really, really good at what they're doing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that is probably because of the visual acuity.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're really, really good at at seeing things.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we know that they can see a lot of different colors, and that probably allows them to recognize each other.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then they probably use their vision, you know, a little bit in their surroundings because they are dispersing long distances sometimes.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes they're just staying around the pond from which they emerge.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but either way, they're they're aware of their surroundings and they're kind of um they're forming a lot of images with those eyes.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Are they migratory?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: See, that's another thing I would tell the fifth grade class to get them excited is I would say, listen, kids, this is where it's at.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like this, they migrate, they're among the longest distance migration of all animals on the planet.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there are other vertebrates like whales and things like that that travel a little bit farther when there's a couple of birds, but it's a single individual of the genus Pantella can travel 11,000 kilometers.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty far.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: So these migrations are across oceans.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, certainly we know a very well-recorded route across the Indian Ocean, across the Chinese Sea, but we think they're also crossing um the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean with making stopovers, you know, in different islands.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're doing this uh mostly passively, just kind of floating on wind currents that go around the equator.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but that's pretty remarkable that they could do these long distances.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: You think?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's these other in like that's just one species that does that long distance migration.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's maybe 20 species in total that we think do migration of some sort.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: That one, the one I just described, is the longest distance migrant.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: But then there are other homebodies that might travel 11 meters their whole life.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they never leave the pond from which they emerge uh and they're just kind of hanging out.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think as humans, we can relate to that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are jet setters, and there are those of us who are homebodies who like to kind of stay uh, you know, provincially like where we're from.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's really relatable.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Spectacular.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: How many different kinds of dragonflies are there?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you know there's like almost around six sixty, four uh hundred species, close to sixty, five hundred species.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's around the same number as all of mammals.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the same number of species as mammals, same number is what we have for Odonata, per the dragonflies and damselflies.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's around 3,000 of the damselflies, around 3,000 of the dragonflies.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's this third suborder, I didn't mention it, because it doesn't have a fancy common name.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's called a Nizozygoptera.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: It is only these four speech, well, three to four species that live in China, the Himalayas, and Japan.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyways, there's so that additionally, there's those three or four species.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I, you as a parent, you know, used to get so annoyed because my kids, when they were in kindergarten, they're grown now, but when they're in kindergarten, they came home and they learned how to recognize the differences between oscelots and panthers and zebras and pigs and all of these mammals.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if I were to say to any, to them, or to either their classmates, tell me the difference between pantalofluvescence and pacchy diplex lantroped is they did not learn it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, why would you?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's so many species.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's the same number as mammals, but we put a lot of emphasis on teaching kids to distinguish amongst various big cats or various, you know, snakes and things like that.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I I do think it's a missed opportunity because if we can learn, you could recognize most mammals.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I was to show you a picture book of mammals, Scott, you probably would recognize almost all of them, you know.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we could do the same thing.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Kids, kids should be able to do that for insects too.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And why not get them hooked on dragonflies early?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Kindergarten's a great time.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what it is.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, megaphon is charismatic, it's larger and easier to see.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's you point out a white-tailed deer on the roadside, you know, as you're driving around and maybe not a damselfly.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Although now you kind of screwed me there.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be looking for them everywhere I go.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna overlook other stuff and start looking for damselflies.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I just I'm just fascinated.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the dragonflies and and damselflies, they are carnivores?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: They are.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: So they do this both in their juvenile stage and their adult stage.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So females and males mate.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Females lay her, she lays her eggs in fresh water.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: So they need fresh water.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's an important part of their story.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and their juveniles hatch from the eggs and then develop over weeks, months, or in some species, like multiple years in freshwater.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And in freshwater, they're predators.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: So they're eating other insects, they're eating each other, um, but they also in their juvenile stage can eat small tadpoles and small fish.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: So they can eat vertebrates in their juvenile stage.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then they emerge in their final, they molt to a larger and larger size until their final molt, they molt and become an adult.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they come out of the water, they kind of cling to a uh a reed or some emergent vegetation around the water.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes you can actually see the last skin, we call those exubia, clinging to the to a reed or something like that, a sedge.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, then they emerge as adults, and then as terrestrial adults, they are usually, you know, very voracious predators.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: So they, in both of their life cycles, they're able to really control, they are, they're doing a service for us, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're controlling flies.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're controlling a lot of the things that we don't like, um, mosquitoes, black flies, horseflies, things that are we would find to be a nuisance uh would be a much worse problem if not for the juveniles consuming their juveniles when they're in the water and the adults consuming the flies when they're when they're in the terrestrial stage.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's spectacular.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of life expectancy do they have?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the interesting thing, Scott, is that their entire life is their juvenile stage, really.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because whether they develop over weeks or if they develop over months, or if they develop over multiple years, five, ten years in the water, their adult stage is always the same.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's always three months.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So whether or not you have a prolonged uh juvenile stage or you have a really short juvenile stage, you're still just going to be an adult that lives in the summer months.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they have three to four months to do all those important jobs.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Eat, disperse, find a mate, lay your eggs.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they have to do that all in that kind of three to four month period.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they live the bulk of their lives as juveniles in the water, or is it in the water or on the water?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: In the water.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the water.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: They swim, they're underwater.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they swim.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they they swim and they breathe underwater.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: So damselflies and dragonflies are a little bit different in the way that they do it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Damselflies have gills that kind of look like little petals almost sticking out the back of their bum.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's where they do their gas exchange.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's how they get oxygen.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're often kind of clinging to vegetation, the roots of vegetation.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes they're underneath rocks, you might find them, or kind of on the edge of a stream bank, but they're underneath the water.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're completely submerged.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Dragonflies, by contrast, and that other group that doesn't have a common name, an isozygoptera, the one that's in China, the Himalayas in Japan, they have their gills in their bum.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they have internal gills.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: We call them rectal gills.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh they are also getting their oxygen um by being completely submerged and then having gas exchange occur through their bum.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: But they can also, they've kind of modified their bum to breathe, but then also they can like relax their bum and then water goes into their bum, and then they can kind of like push the water out really, really fast, and it's like a jet propulsion to allow them to very quickly escape predators or to move quickly through the water uh body.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So they're able to kind of move up and down the water column and then like you know, down a stream, up a stream, around a pond, um, crawling and scrambling around.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a very special river that does burrows.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I this is all spectacularly new to me.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I should sit in on your next fifth grade lecture.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So so they can do that for weeks, months, or years, depending on the species.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the cool thing is, Scott, is that this is across the world, right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: So as you as you as you know, uh being in the States here, like there's parts of the the year when it's really cold and it's frozen.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and in northern latitudes in Canada and in, you know, Yukon, Sweden, what have you, the water is actually frozen solid.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: So these nymphs, the ones that develop over multiple years, they freeze.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: They freeze solid.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so part of our work has been to go to the Arctic to study some of the species that live that where they have multiple years to develop.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what happens to those nymphs when they're frozen solid.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Just the heat, when we we like we'll use an you know, an auger, we like cut open the ice, bring up the and get the nymphs out, not moving, the heat of your hand will warm them up.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then they just start motoring along looking for food.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So there is like an interesting part of the story is that they're doing it over weeks, months, and years, but how they're doing it kind of varies if you're in a hot part of the globe or in the cold part where they're actually going to be frozen for part of their time.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And but whatever length of time they're in that juvenile stage, they all get roughly 90 days when they leave water and take to the air.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: The part that we all see, you know, or that most of us are familiar with.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they are voracious hunters.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is hunting them?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they eat uh hunting each other.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's one.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: So other insects eat them.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, birds, frogs, um, fish jump out of the water to catch them, um, bats, there's all like pretty much any vertebrae um insectivore can take uh take these animals.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And fish and fish and whatnot are eating them under the water for the for the part that they're down when they're in the water?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: In the juvenile stage, then any of the animals that are living in the water can eat the juveniles.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: But then, like I can't tell you how many times I've been on the dock, you know, with my net trying to catch a dragonfly, and a fish jumps out of the water and nabs the adult, you know.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they also will jump out and have the adults.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of hilarious videos on the internet of frogs jumping out of the water trying to catch dragonflies and spectacularly failing and flailing about.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's I think it's a very common source of risk.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we think that may have driven, I mean, dragonflies are known that part of their story is like color and vision, but a part of their story is that they're amazing flyers.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we think that they're amazing flyers because they have to, you know, disperse and do all sorts of complicated things when they're finding their mates, but they're also amazing flyers to evade these predators.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So they're really good at like turning on a dime, um, changing height in the air column really fast, um, and flying at very fast speeds.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: And in part, we think that maneuverability probably evolved because of pressure from birds.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: But they're very good at eating.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I have to start to make a long list of the things I had no idea about.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Their life cycle, that it's all underwater until the last three months, I had no idea.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: That they could live multiple years, I had no idea.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: That they had migrations that went thousands of miles, or as you said, 11 meters.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had I had no idea.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: These are fascinating little critters.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they've been doing it for a long time.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they've had, you know, 350 million.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, in the first flyers.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: They they're an MV pingy animal.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: You need to more people need to know this, Jessica.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is why I felt when my kids came home and were asking me questions about how they could distinguish a leopard and an ocelot.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you guys, you're focusing on I mean, leopards and ocelots are cool, but like, wouldn't it be neat to learn about that type of detail for dragonflies, too?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did they ever get that enthusiasm?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think they're they're neither of my kids are gonna be entomologists, but they definitely appreciate insects and they go out and collect with me, which is which is awesome.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's fun when you get to work with your kids a little bit.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: My son produces this podcast.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wonderful.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we get to spend a lot of time together there.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So now, um, you know, birders, uh, you know, they keep track of the birds that they've seen, you know, they've got their lists.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is there a similar group in the dragonfly and damselfly world where you're keeping track of how many of the 6,000 species you've seen?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, really, it is that way.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: And some people even call these the bird watchers insect because you can see them easily with binoculars.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: And this colleague of mine, Tid Dunkel, he actually wrote a book called Dragonflies Through Binoculars.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the idea is that you can basically make have a lifeless, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: To see, to see these animals.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times they are perching, but sometimes you can identify them even when they're on the wing, which is what we say when when they're flying.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so the I that's you're cool.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're gonna on the wing.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta be hip, man.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta be hip with the youth.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently so, you know, and and I'm not.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a good lesson for me.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I would definitely say that those of us who I think people who study these animals are interested in them for a lot of reasons, but people I think universally, even if you weren't studying them scientifically, people appreciate the beauty of them in the way that people appreciate the beauty of birds.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: You can recognize patterns and color patterns for identification.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: There are some things where it's really helpful to look at the genitals or look at very specific detailed characteristics, but in general, you can get pretty far just looking at color patterns.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: So just like for birds with binoculars or just kind of looking, you could be like, oh, I think that's annex genius.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's uh such and such species.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that allows you to kind of do a lifeless in the way that birders can do a lifeless.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I know a lot, I I've not met a dragonfly person yet.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now I'm gonna be on the lookout.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I do know a lot of birders who are not converting to, but adding to, they're doing mothing.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they've really gotten gotten into moths.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I've not met somebody yet who has either come up as a dragonfly person or has added that to their to their birding list.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because for a lot of birders who don't travel a lot, you know, they're the birds are still beautiful and so, but the the experience of finding a new one isn't readily available.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're switching to something else where, you know, especially if you've got OCD and you need a list, yeah, um, you know, you want to be able to check some stuff off.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, oh God, now I'm gonna start with dragonflies.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is this has been a great conversation, and yet I'm not sure that I should have done it because you're gonna you're gonna change things for me.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many how many of these roughly 6,000 species can we find in the United States?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's around 450 species in the United States, and some states have more than others.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, this fine state of New Jersey, where I'm speaking to you from right now, um, has over 180 species, for example.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Texas has over 200 species.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, depending on where you are, you'll have slightly more or fewer.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um and in general, this is you the places you want to go to look for them is really any standing water.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: So streams, ponds, lakes, rivers.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: But don't overlook temporary transient bodies of water.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how many dragonflies I caught in the parking lot at Rutgers, Newark, in Newark, New Jersey, which is a concrete jungle.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but dragonflies often mistake the surfaces of cars for the surfaces of water because when the light bounces off of it, it looks a lot like water to them.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: So look, even if you're in an urban environment, you'll still see dragonflies.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like there'll still be dragonflies there, even if there isn't a big lake or pond near you.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we should make a note, you won't see oscelots in an urban environment.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, of all the things that kids are more likely to see in their lifetime, it's insects, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like the chances of them actually going to see a zebra if you're living in the United States is pretty small, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could go see them at a zoo, I suppose, but you will see a dragonfly probably every single summer of your life.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you notice it, whether you take the time to look at it, that's a different story.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: But they will be in your environment.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: They will be around you if you live in these United States.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: They will be around you every single summer.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so the decisions that you make in your day-to-day actually impact these animals that you're living with.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're right in your backyard.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you're choosing um, you know, to try and have an insect-free summer, it doesn't just impact mosquitoes.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: It impacts dragonflies.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: That means you're having a dragonfly-free summer uh because a lot of those things have have rippling effects up towards the top predators.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so just so I'm clear, uh the the three, the roughly three-month period that they're living as adults, is that always in the summer then?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so where depending on which part of the country, uh which part of the globe you're in, that could mean that they're out like in the southern hemisphere.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: They're really common in November, December, January.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: In New Jersey, where I'm at right now, or in Canada, where I was from, where I was born, uh, then it would be, you know, June, July, August is where you'd see the most of them.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's some that come out a little bit before that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's some that stay a little bit after, but that's kind of like the that hot summertime is when they're going to be most active.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're extremely busy, I imagine.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's the best time.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, the summer is so great.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Every summer there's like a new like Hope Springs eternal, I guess, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: A new goal.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wouldn't it be great if we got we were able to cut see the nymphs of every single all the 182 species in New Jersey?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's the goal every summer.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then we don't always meet that goal.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: But like it's just exciting that if you this is the time and they're out there, and this is also your best chance to help them.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's exciting.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this uh first of all, your energy and enthusiasm for this is amazing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um you have been a spectacular guest, and I have to tell you, I'm gonna say this publicly here.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would love to have you back because I wanted I love your enthusiasm, but I want to talk about termites and cockroaches and mantises as well.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So if you wouldn't mind, somewhere you know in the next little bit, we'll schedule again to have you here because this has been great.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is so exciting.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm throwing my email up.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're watching this, my email uh will be on screen.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're listening, it's Scott at naturaliscott.com.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got questions for me or Jessica, send them to me and uh and we'll make something happen.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica, um, from uh from a collecting point of view, of the 450 or so in the U.S., how many have you seen?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think I might have seen pretty close to all of them.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've been I've been doing this for uh some time and I've really tried to travel.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've been fortunate that I've been able to travel a lot around these states and in Canada uh to try and see even the ones that are up in the Arctic, uh, all the way down to the tippy tip of Texas and Florida.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of beautiful colors out there, and if I would say, like, there's even if well, my specialty is really this one particular super family.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but any dragonfly or damself that I see, I just feel like you're looking at a time machine.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you see it, stop.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: I would say just stop.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if people are watching this, I would say just stop and look at them.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: These are older than dinosaurs, you know.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not that individual specimen, but like the the group, it's older than dinosaurs, and they've been around a really long time and oldest stories they could tell, I'm sure.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is this has been fascinating.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have been enthusiastic and charming, and I am absolutely certain that of the shows we've done, and you're roughly number 60, I think.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be one of the more surprising ones for people.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is, which is why I can't wait to get you back to find out what I don't know about termites and cockroaches and manisees, because obviously there's going to be a lot.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So this is great.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you that are watching on YouTube, do me a favor.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only favor I ask, but I do ask it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, hit the subscribe button.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you do, YouTube pushes this video out to more and more people.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And come on, who doesn't want to hear Jessica's story?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just hit subscribe, maybe drop a comment or hit like, but please do that if you would.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica, this has been so thrilling for me.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being a guest today.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: It has really, truly been my pleasure, and I appreciate you being here.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you bet, and for all of you who are listening or watching, I close the same way, but now you've got something else to look for.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Get outside, whether it's your back porch or your front yard or your local park, or in Jessica's case, any little pond or gathering of still water, or even a creek or a stream, get out there and look for these dragonflies and dampflies.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm going to be.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, absolutely.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as I tell everybody, and I've mentioned this earlier in the show, Jessica, but you know, I always encourage people to get outside.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: But when you do, stay safe and stay curious.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: This has been Scott Harris with Naturally Scott, an absolute honored host to have Jessica Ware joining us today.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Take care, and I will see you guys next week.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Jessica.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Naturally Scott with Scott Harris.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, directed and edited by Frank Sierra.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at naturally Scott Harris.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott thanks you for viewing and listening to this podcast.