Dig a Pond for Dragonflies
This is the text of the British Dragonfly Society booklet "Dig a Pond for Dragonflies". The booklet was written in 1990 to assist people in preparing a suitable habitat for Dragonflies and Damselflies. You should note that this is biased towards the United Kingdom and that prices have changed over the years. It is being published here to make it available to enthusiasts worldwide. New members will receive a printed copy of this booklet on joining. The illustrated, printed copy is available to all for £2.50 (inc. p&p) but we are unable to accept payment in anything other than sterling.
You may also be interested in an accompanying text "Managing Habitats for Dragonflies" which is also available online.
Dragonflies are special and need our help
They attract our attention by their lovely colours and by their outstanding acrobatic skills. They arouse our interest by their very individual life history; and a large part of their appeal lies in the fact that they cannot harm us: they do not sting and their bite is no more than a pinch. On the contrary, as adults they devour insects that DO harm us: mosquitoes, midges and other flies are caught and devoured in large numbers and with great dexterity. As larvae, their potential benefit to Man is enormous. A project was carried out in Myanmar (Burma) in which larvae of a local species of darter dragonfly were systematically released into domestic water storage containers in order to suppress the pre-adult stages of the Yellow Fever Mosquito, a principal carrier of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever. The outstanding success of the project demonstrated without doubt that under appropriate conditions, which are encountered in other places besides Myanmar, dragonfly larvae can be used to reduce vectors of major diseases: an extraordinarily exciting possibility.
Fossil records of creatures, clearly recognisable as dragonflies, show that they were flying some 300 million years ago. It is up to us, today, to ensure their continued survival.
Dragonflies both breed in water and spend by far the greater part of their lives in water. Over the millennia, when a river changed its course or when marshes, lakes and ponds dried up, dragonflies were soon able to find alternatives and swiftly colonise them. Sadly we can no longer leave this to nature. As you will see in the following introduction, suitable habitats are disappearing and it is becoming urgent that we do something to reverse the trend.
Several British species of dragonfly and damselfly will breed in garden ponds (photographs of some of them can be found on these pages). The booklet is intended to show one simple way in which we can help. We can Dig a Pond for Dragonflies!
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