The damselflies were filling Permian skies with their iridescent beauty long before even the ancestors of the dinosaurs had begun to evolve.
During this impossibly remote Period the continents existed as one; the huge supercontinent of Pangea.
Over this new land the amphibians and early reptiles roamed whilst the air was the realm of the insects.
Even through the greatest of all extinctions, in the late Permian, the delicate damselflies continued to thrive and occupy every corner of our planet.
And here they are today 300 million years later still participating within the ecology.
Those Zygopteran eyes gaze out upon a world utterly changed, yet they themselves have seen no reason to change.
They are so perfectly adapted to the environment that nothing in that great span of time has evolved that can improve on the design of the damselfly.
Thus it rests upon this leaf, an ultraconservative, waiting for a mate so that it too can continue this most ancient of lines.
The role of men is changing in the 21st century. Want to keep up? Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
Photo: Blue Tailed Damselfly on blackberry leaf. Courtesy of the author.
