Insect World’s Greatest Traveler

Who is the insect world’s greatest traveler? …And the prize goes to Pantala flavescens, a species of dragonfly. A British naturalist has claimed that this 5cm-long dragonfly may hold the record for the longest migration, from southern India to Africa and then back — a distance of 12,000 miles.

Andrew Buncombe of The Independent reports: ” ‘It’s an amazing story,’ said the naturalist, Charles Anderson, speaking by telephone from his home in Male, capital of the Maldives. ‘But what is beautiful is that the pieces of the puzzle fit together.’

“Mr Anderson first started thinking about the dragonflies after he arrived in the Maldives in 1983. Every year in October, millions of the creatures arrive in swarms, a phenomenon that is well known to local people and which they say heralds the beginning of the north-east monsoon.

“He discovered that the dragonflies in the Maldives arrived somewhat after similar swarms of the insects appeared in southern India. On the more southerly atolls of the Maldives, they appeared later still. The numbers peaked in November and December.

“Mr Anderson believes the dragonflies are heading to southern and east Africa, slowly making their way eastwards on the tradewinds. In the northern Seychelles, around 1,700 miles from India, the dragonflies appear in November. In Uganda they appear twice a year – in March and April and again in September, while in Mozambique and Tanzania they arrive in December.

“Mr Anderson has published his findings in the Journal of Tropical Ecology.

“(However,) the longest aerial migrations, however, are still those of birds. The Arctic tern travels every winter from Britain to the Southern Ocean and sometimes even reaches Australia – a round trip of more than 22,000 miles.

“The longest single non-stop journey is believed to be that of the bar-tailed godwit, pictured, a wading bird, which has been shown to fly 8,000 miles across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand in a continuous uninterrupted flight lasting eight days.” More here…