Mystery on a wing

• Last Updated: November 28. 2009 8:27PM UAE / November 28. 2009 4:27PM GMT

The next time you’re out wandering about in nature, stop for a short listen in the area around you. If there’s a faint buzz of wings, there might be a chance you’re picking up the flutter of the country’s latest star of the insect kingdom: the red-veined darter.

This dragonfly, common in southern Europe and Africa, has been under the careful observation of entomologists in the UAE, who are trying to understand how and why this non-native species has chosen to migrate and breed in desert climes.

“The record books have been rewritten,” one hobbyist has announced, as the dragonfly seems to flourishing in the Emirates like never before. The problem is, no one seems quite sure why. A wet spring in Asia has been posited, and changing migration patterns may have something to do with it. Perhaps it is as simple as nobody had been listening before. What seems sure, however, is the limits of our knowledge even about a dragonfly.