Anderson Charles Discovers Dragonflies that cross oceans Monsoon season: hot air rises and air is brought from the southwest, picks up moisture from the ocean in the summer. Dragonflies lay their eggs in freshwater and feed on mosquito larvae. There is a lot of variation with one year lifespan. The Globe Skimmer- found across the world, mediocre looking dragonfly One day Anderson discovered hundreds of dragonflies at particular seasons then they left. Dragonflies need freshwater to breed. In the Maldives (South Asia), there is no surface freshwater. So why do dragonflies show up at this time (21 Oct during the southwest monsoon then they leave in November when the monsoon direction of Northeast takes monsoon over traveling across the ocean to East Africa where it is raining at the time so the dragonflies can breed in the monsoon rains)? The wind is always converging where the rain is. The sun is overhead, maximum evaporation, clouds, rainfall, which produced maximum reproduction. After 4 generations the dragonflies complete a circuit of the Indian Ocean.
While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the globe skimmer, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world.