Bugland: Year Of The Dragon Fly

OK, it is actually the Chinese Year of the Dragon (no fly). But that got us to thinking: Dragonflies looks nothing like dragons, so why do they have that name? The answer is steeped in Romanian folklore and the story of St. George. According to legend, St. George wounded a dragon. Enraged, the Devil turned St. George’s horse into a giant flying insect. The Romanian word drac means both “Devil” and “dragon,” and so the insect became a dragonfly. This Band-winged Meadowhawk dragonfly was photographed at Bluff Lake by Mark Silverstein.