Here Be Dragons: Sixty New Species of Dragonflies Discovered in Africa

The Dragon-fly

Today I saw the dragon-fly

Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892)

Seven hundred species of dragonflies and damselflies were known to inhabit continental Africa. But recently, researchers published descriptions of 60 new species in the specialist journal Odonatologica, which dramatically increases the number of named African species. Discovered by an international team of dragonfly experts ("odonatologists"), naturalists and school teachers during a period of fifteen years, this is the greatest number of new dragonfly and damselfly species to be formally described at the same time in 130 years.

Chasing after that "living flash of light"

As insects go, odonates -- dragonflies and damselflies -- are well-known. Worldwide, more than 6,000 species have been named. Yet, this one paper, the result of 15 years' work, has added 60 more species, increasing the total number known for Africa alone to 760 species.

“The current emphasis on molecular research in taxonomy creates the impression that undiscovered life is inconspicuous or hidden,” said lead author and dragonfly expert, Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission Dragonfly Specialist Group and an honorary research associate at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands.

“[B]ut each of our new species is colorful and easy to identify”, Dr Dijkstra pointed out in email.

Remarkably, despite their conspicuousness, only nine of the 60 new species were discovered by a professional biologist whilst he worked for a university or museum on academic time; 21 more were discovered by the biologist working as a paid consultant, and the rest by a teacher or professional consultant -- in their spare time.

“Anyone who deepens their interest in nature and goes out to look, can find new species”, said Dr Dijkstra. “It’s a matter of going outside and knowing what you’re looking for.”

Unnamed species are invisible species

“Introducing species to society and into our [consciousness] has general importance”, said Dr Dijkstra. “Nature needs names. Like a person’s name, they allow us to care.”

“As one budding enthusiast exclaimed to me: 'You don’t notice them until you know they have a name!'” added Dr Dijkstra.

Names chosen by taxonomists consist of a common name and a binomial, or scientific, name, which is either Latin or is "Latinised". Whilst the common name may change to reflect local or popular usage, and may be shared with other species, the scientific name, which conforms to specific nomenclatural rules, is unique and stable; only changing to reflect new developments in our understanding of species relationships.

Since the assigned binomial is more or less permanent, naming a new species can be challenging and perhaps somewhat intimidating, but it provides an opportunity for researchers to add some poetry to science. Thus, a number of strategies are used to name newly identified species. For example, some names are descriptive.

“Males of the Polychrome Jewel, Africocypha varicolor, from Gabon, for example, are not just black, blue, green and red, but can also have a red, blue or yellow tail-end", said Dr Dijkstra.

“We have no idea why”, added Dr Dijkstra. “Maybe females have different preferences? Or males are signalling something about their own or their territory's condition?”

Other names refer to local words or events. For example, the peace sprite, Pseudagrion pacale, was discovered on the Moa River near Sierra Leone’s diamond capital, Kenema. Twenty years earlier, fleeing villagers became trapped between rebel and government forces on opposite banks of this river, and drowned. Perhaps ironically, Kenema became the epicentre of an Ebola outbreak just two years later.

The team named some species after people who helped or inspired them. For example, the dawn jewel, Chlorocypha aurora, was named to honour Dr Dijkstra’s colleagues at DAWN (the Damselfly Workers at Naturalis).

Although naming a species after yourself is forbidden, the other team members named the newly discovered blue-spotted pricklyleg, Porpax mezierei, in honour of co-author Nicolas Mézière, who worked as a secondary school teacher in Gabon for seven years whilst chasing dragonflies and damselflies in his spare time. Mr Mézière discovered 18 of these 60 newly identified species.

“Nico [Nicolas Mézière] is the author of the paper this species is described in, but not of the description itself, and so we've avoided any immodesty from his side!” said Dr Dijkstra.

Of course, some names are light-hearted and intended to attract the public's attention. The best example of this is the robust sparklewing, Umma gumma, which is named for the 1969 classic Pink Floyd album “Ummagumma”, slang for making love.

Dragonflies and damselflies indicate the quality of freshwater habitats

Odonates are exclusively dependent upon freshwater habitats. They lay their eggs in freshwater, their larvae are aquatic, and the adults maintain freshwater territories for reproduction. Thus, they are sensitive to structural changes in their homes, such as erosion and loss of vegetation cover, and changes in water clarity and water flow, just to name a few things. By monitoring the diversity of odonate species and their relative numbers present on a body of water, observers can obtain fine-grained data about the types of structural changes taking place in a particular watershed. Long-term monitoring of odonate communities is an accessible and important way for human communities to assess ongoing changes within a particular ecosystem.

Although less than 1% of the Earth's surface is covered with freshwater, these habitats are home to 10% of all animal species (doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-011613-161958). Due to intense human exploitation by mining, damming, fishing, land-clearing and agriculture, freshwater-dependent species are more likely to be endangered than those living anywhere else. These pressures will only increase: the global human population, which surpassed 7 billion people sometime in 2012, is projected to grow to 11 billion people by 2100, and 83% of that growth is predicted to occur in African nations.

At the same time that museum collections are becoming increasingly digitised, our knowledge of the various life forms present in areas that are most vulnerable to increasing human populations is unfortunately incomplete, as this 233-page paper indicates. For this reason, unidentified species can be wiped out of existence before we ever know they are present -- and certainly before we learn anything about them.

At the same time that museum collections are becoming increasingly digitised, natural history museums and taxonomists receive fewer and fewer funds to conduct research; to identify, describe and name species, to go into the field to learn more about these species, and to share their knowledge with the public in a meaningful way.

“Biodiversity science seems to be hurtling towards a state where all available data may be accessible, but where fewer and fewer people know what these data mean”, observed Dr Dijkstra.

“For example, none of the world's great Odonata collections has a dedicated researcher anymore”, added Dr Dijkstra. “Just serving the tens of thousands worldwide who simply enjoy these insects' beauty, would make it worth it.”

Making this information freely available online is a step in the right direction because it serves to increase public awareness of these animals, of their intrinsic value, and of their value to humans. And of course, such discoveries may serve to inspire a new generation of odonatologists, whether they are amateurs or professionals, and whether they seek these insects with a camera, a microscope or a DNA sequencer.

“We see this effort as a call to science and the public: make the search for unknown life a priority before it’s too late,” said Dr Dijkstra.

“In freshwater alone a quarter million species could be gone before they are known. Nature needs more explorers now!”

60 New Species of Dragonflies Discovered in Africa | @GrrlScientist

Sources:

Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra, Jens Kipping & Nicolas Mézière (2015). Sixty new dragonfly and damselfly species from Africa (Odonata), Odonatologica 44(4): 447-678 | doi:10.5281/zenodo.35388

Also cited:

Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra, Michael T. Monaghan, and Steffen U. Pauls (2014). Freshwater Biodiversity and Aquatic Insect Diversification, Annual Review of Entomology 59:143-163 | doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-011613-161958