by Carla Caruso

Forget House of the Dragon; Adelaide’s currently a mecca for dragonflies – and damselflies.

You might have noticed the winged creatures swarming about the city, in even bigger numbers than those seen last summer.

According to Kris Messenger, the owner of education group Bugs n Slugs, drought conditions, followed by flooding rains, have likely triggered a “frenzy” of breeding.

“We've just had constant rain,” Kris told us over the phone. “Three days before Christmas [it was] 33C degrees and we had a thunderstorm. I’m driving now through the Barossa and there are puddles everywhere.

“And what’s going to be in the puddles? Dragonfly eggs, because there are dragonflies everywhere and they’ll just try to breed in any available water.”

*Kris Messenger. Photo: Feast Festival.*

Anywhere with still water, in fact, is a good place to spot the critters, Kris says. “Because their life cycle is semi-aquatic, they have to lay their eggs in [or near] water. But they’re not going to be laying in a fast-flowing creek. They’re going to deposit eggs in and around wetlands.

“So, there’s probably a ton of [dragonflies] in the Adelaide Botanic Garden [Park 11]. There’s probably a ton of them through the Victoria Park wetlands [Park 16] … and there’s probably an absolute ton of them along the [River] Torrens.”

Kris adds: “All of the swarms that I’ve seen are of the very big Australian emperor dragonflies, and they’re a large, very beautiful dragonfly with a great, big, giant head.

“If you really want to do some [different] dragonfly-spotting, go to your local wetland. Just sit still and watch the reeds and watch the plants, and you’ll see other species of dragonflies and damselflies [too] but in fewer numbers.”

*Chris Gascoigne caught this damselfly on camera in Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (****Park 27***). Among the differences between dragonflies and damselflies, damselflies have wings that are both the same size and shape, tapering where they’re attached to the body. Dragonflies, meanwhile, have different-shaped fore and hind wings.

There are more than 300 known dragonfly species in Australia. The females lay hundreds of eggs at a time “in batches”. The eggs hatch into nymphs, which swim around in the water for anywhere from two months to two years, depending on the conditions.

“They’re quite big, aggressive aquatic predators. [Then] the dragonfly emerges out of that and flies off into the sky,” Kris says. The adults only live for about six to eight weeks.

Ideal times to catch the insects swarming, she says, are “just after dawn and just before dusk”. That’s when the mosquitoes, midges and flies are also around. “Another thing, of course, that drives that swarming behaviour is the availability of food … that's when they're most active, hunting.”

Kris expects the abundance of dragonflies to last “right through to the end of summer”. “It’s a happy week for bug people. Now I’ve just got to convince people to love spiders because they eat flies and mosquitoes too!”