Sometimes alone. Dragonfly at Setangi Beach, Setangi, Lombok, Indonesia
Hundreds, literally hundreds. Marvelous Dragonflies on the edge of the Coconut Palm Plantation at Setangi. Here's one caught alone on its perch, to which it regularly returned. Lovely to watch. I think it's a Potamarcha congener, but I a may be wrong. Please correct me if that's the case.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), that great naturalist and friend of Charles Darwin - indeed, he of The Wallace Line - writes about his stay on Lombok in 1856. From The Malay Archipelago: "Every day boys were to be seen walking along the roads and by the hedges and ditches, catching dragonflies with birdlime. They carry a slender stick, with a few twigs at the end well anointed, so that the least touch captures the insect, whose wings are pulled off before it is consigned to a small basket. The dragonflies are so abundant at the time of the rice flowering that thousands are soon caught in this way. The bodies are fried in oil with onions and preserved shrimps, or sometimes alone, and are considered a great delicacy."
I didn't see any catchers of dragonflies, but only of grasshoppers for fishing bait... Moreover, I have yet to taste Wallace's recipe and don't think I will!
PS Sorry about the slow and basically utterly erratic internet here. Hope soon to be able to comment more regularly...
Sometimes alone. Dragonfly at Setangi Beach, Setangi, Lombok, Indonesia
Hundreds, literally hundreds. Marvelous Dragonflies on the edge of the Coconut Palm Plantation at Setangi. Here's one caught alone on its perch, to which it regularly returned. Lovely to watch. I think it's a Potamarcha congener, but I a may be wrong. Please correct me if that's the case.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), that great naturalist and friend of Charles Darwin - indeed, he of The Wallace Line - writes about his stay on Lombok in 1856. From The Malay Archipelago: "Every day boys were to be seen walking along the roads and by the hedges and ditches, catching dragonflies with birdlime. They carry a slender stick, with a few twigs at the end well anointed, so that the least touch captures the insect, whose wings are pulled off before it is consigned to a small basket. The dragonflies are so abundant at the time of the rice flowering that thousands are soon caught in this way. The bodies are fried in oil with onions and preserved shrimps, or sometimes alone, and are considered a great delicacy."
I didn't see any catchers of dragonflies, but only of grasshoppers for fishing bait... Moreover, I have yet to taste Wallace's recipe and don't think I will!
PS Sorry about the slow and basically utterly erratic internet here. Hope soon to be able to comment more regularly...