Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 1991 — A giant of a dragonfly [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A giant of a dragonfly

You may have seen one zooming about or hovering over a mountain stream. Its striking colors of metallic turquoise or green make it conspicuous. Yet aside from its distinctive movements and colors the most

noticeable feature of this endemic Hawaiian dragonfly is its size. With a robust body and a wingspan of about six inches this dragonfly, known to Hawaiians as pinao, is the largest native Hawaiian insect and the largest dragonfly in the United States. Prehistoric ancestors of dragonflies had wingspans nearly three feet long and were the largest insects known to have lived. A descendant of the indigenous Green Darner dragonfly, the pinao is a classic example of gigantism; an evolutionary occurrence not uneommon on remote island groups. Though it prefers to hunt along upland streams or cliffsides, the pinao often flies down and "hawks" the shorelines in search of prey. Its meals consist of a variety of flying insects and other small creatures. Female dragonflies ean often be seen laying eggs in streams or ponds sometimes with the mating male still attached to them. The eggs are deposited on underwater plants and hatch into larvae called nymphs whieh live in the water and ean travel by means of jet propulsion. The nymphs feed on aquatic animals such as water bugs, mollusks and even small fish. Like all insects, the nymphs shed their skin to grow. When a nymph is ready it will crawl out of the water, shed its skin one last time, and be transformed into a winged adult. Pinao is a generic term for dragonfly. The

dragonfly discussed in this article is anax Strennuus. There are other species of dragonfly

or damselfly that may also haue been called pinao.

\a....ally Hawallai, art^^2Ziis, |j|