dragonfly chronicles 3 - Gnats and Oil Spills

I retract my comments from a previous post concerning the gnats and their complete uselessness (I believe I called them a Satanic scouge). The other day, I saw a small dragonfly on my screen, so I put my finger out up under it's legs and got it to perch there. I noticed something hanging from it's mouth about as big as it's head. It was a black bug or gnat or some other kind small flying insect. The dragonfly chewed away at it's prey leaving its small legs on my finger as it ate. I thought for sure it would eat maybe half of the bug and then be done, but alas, it ate the entire thing and then flew away.

This got me thinking about my times by the creek. Often I see one the dragonflies swoop down and eat some small white floating particle, but until now I've assumed it was a piece of falling pollen or something else from the tree above. Now I believe these white floaters to be gnats. This has made me reconsider necessity of gnats. They are in fact the bottom wrung of the food chain and are incredibly annoying, but they serve the purpose of food for the dragonfly and probably many other creatures just above them in the circle of life. It reminds me that ecosystems are delicate and even the smallest of insects which may seem to us useless are probably here for a reason perhaps playing important role in the grandscope of environmental health.

Writing this post makes me ponder the current and/or potential disaster still effusing from the Horizon in the Gulf. So many ecosystems have or will be affected by this crisis, and the reduction or loss of even the smallest of species could have devastating effects.