Visitors to Rum and the Small Isles over the summer are being asked to help track large carnivorous flying insects which have evolved on the islands over the past 300 million years.
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is calling on island hoppers to help the British Dragonfly Society (BDS) complete its first survey of dragonflies in the area by reporting any encounters with the giant insects during their visits.
Coinciding with National Dragonfly Week (June 19-27), SNH is promoting a new publication ‘Dragonflies of the Small Isles’ as a local guide for sightings of these spectacular insects in the area. Funded by SNH and produced by BDS the new leaflet will enable people to easily identify and record any species they come upon on Rum’s national nature reserve and the other Small Isles.
SNH Rum Operations manager Sarah Bentley said: “We’re asking people visiting Rum and the Small Isles to support dragonfly conservation efforts by helping to map the numbers and variety of the area’s dragonfly population. This new leaflet makes it easy for people to identify any dragonflies they spot in the islands and tells them how to report back the details to the BDS survey team. “
The Small Isles offer perfect habitat conditions for a wide variety of spectacular dragonflies and the BDS survey hopes to record the numbers and distribution of the species. Jonathan Willet of the BDS produced the leaflet. He said: “The British Dragonfly Society plans to publish a National Dragonfly Atlas in 2013 and we are looking for help from visitors to the areas of Scotland which currently have least recorded data.”
“Dragonflies are our most exciting, colourful and charismatic insect species and the Small Isles are a superb place to see them and many other insects. Yet much of Scotland is still relatively uncharted in terms of knowing the overall distribution of our species. On Rum nnr three of the rarer species have not been recorded for 25 years.
“Dragonflies are sensitive to long term temperature change and there has been a northward movement of several species over the last 30 years. The Northern Emerald Dragonfly for example has only been recorded twice 70 years ago although an immature male of this species was found on Muck last year so their presence on these islands is known.”
As a top insect carnivore, dragonflies are also important indicators of the all round health of an area’s natural habitat. Their presence therefore suggests that the biodiversity of the surrounding area is on good condition.