RAINYRAMBLES
Andy Cameron
A stream on the Long Beach Peninsula.
Dragons in the sky
Odonates’ lives in water, on the wing
BY REBECCA LEXA
Rebecca Lexa
The Pacific forktail is a common damselfly in the Columbia-Pacific region.
16 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
With long, sunny days and warm eve-
nings, summer in the Columbia-Pacific is a
treasure to be enjoyed. Of course, no sum-
mer night is complete without its fair share
of mosquitoes, flies and other airborne
insects. Thankfully, these critters serve an
important purpose as food for a variety of
other animals like bats, swallows and spi-
ders. Some of summer’s most acrobatic
hunters, the dragonflies and damselflies, are
also known as odonates. Both groups are
members of the order Odonata, which first
arose over 200 million years ago. These
have even been placed in their own order,
Meganisoptera.
While dragonflies and damselflies
do look similar, damselflies are usually
smaller and more slender. They also hold
their wings differently at rest. Dragonflies
hold theirs open, while damselflies keep
theirs folded closed along their backs. A
close look at their faces also reveals that
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