You may have noticed a sudden increase in the number of dragonflies this week.
According to John Gavloski, an entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture, it's not uncommon for some species of dragonflies to appear in larger numbers at this time of year.
"What's happening is they spend their juvenile stages living in water - ponds, and swamps, and they're feeding on things like mosquito larvae that are in the water, tadpoles, aquatic insects. In June, a lot of species will be crawling out of the water. They will be sunning on a rock or a stone or something on the shore; they'll perch on it and they start splitting their skin open and the adult dragonfly comes out and off it goes. So that is happening right now in kind of a larger way and that's where you get these swarms starting to appear."
Another swarming phenomenon takes place late in the season when some species of dragonfly migrate south for the winter said Gavloski.
The global population of dragonflies contains about 6500 species, 98 of which live in Manitoba.
"Then there's this group, I’ll call them the smaller relatives, called damselflies," explains Gavloski.
"Dragonflies are stouter, broader and when they land their wings are wide open. Damselflies are tinier, slender, they fold their wings up when they land on a plant. People will call them dragonflies but they look like a miniature version of what we know as the bigger, true dragonfly."
The different types of dragonflies include red or orange-coloured Skimmers, the bigger blue or green Darner species, and the Club Tails.
The more delicate damselflies are often blue.
Watching young dragonflies take to the air is a sight to behold.
"There's a period where they've come out of that skin. They have their adult form but they really can't fly well yet. They'll be sitting on the shore, drying their wings. Once [their wings] get nice and hard, then they become expert flyers after that. Dragonflies are some of the best flyers in the insect world because each wing is controlled separately by a separate muscle and they can move them independently if they want to. So they can position them to catch the wind or the air at just the right angle and dart forward [or] backward. They're one of the most fascinating flyers to watch in the insect world."
Adult dragonflies and damselflies want to catch their food in the air, with any flying insect being fair game. They are well-equipped to catch air-borne mosquitoes, having two shorter front legs that come together like a basket with interlocking spines, allowing them to scoop up any flying insect.
While it's not easy to do, Gavloski says people have even tried rearing dragonflies for mosquito-control purposes.
"With their ability to fly forward at one-hundred body lengths per second and backward at three body lengths per second, there's a lot of maneuverability and aerodynamics going on. So enjoy the free air shows and the diversity you'll be seeing over the summer!"
With files from Chris Sumner