Dragonflies and Birds Migrate In Similar Ways

A story is breaking in the popluar press today about dragonflies migrating in similar ways to birds. This story is really just a good excuse for me to put up one my favorite pictures I took in South Carolina a few years back.

Small animals have been migrating since ancient times, but scientists still don’t know very much about where most of the wandering critters come from or where they’re going.

[…]

Although dragonflies are 140 million years older than birds, according to fossil records, they abide by the same temperature and wind rules. Both groups stay put on blustery days and travel only after two days of cooling temperatures. They even use the same markers on the landscape, and rest on the same beaches.

For more information, you can read the blurb from Science or if you’re really adventerous, go digging around the author’s website to learn more about the tracking technology they use.

And when someone publishes a study with a comparison to damselfly sex, I’ve got just the picture for that too.