I came across an article in Dragonfly News (Autumn 2002) which explains the derivation of the scientific names for most UK species of damselflies and dragonflies (Odonata).
I was interested to read that Linnaeus grouped all Odonata together in the genus Libellula. Libellula is the diminutive form of the Latin word Libella, which means ‘spirit level’.
I think most people would be hard-pressed to see the connection!
In the 16th Century, apparently, a spirit level was shaped like a letter T. And because of its similarity to this shape, the French scientist Rondelet, chose Libella marina for the Hammerhead Shark. Later, he found a Zygopteran (dragonfly) larva, not realising it wasn’t an adult, and called it Libella fluviatilis (Hammerhead shark of the river). When it became clear that this was not the adult dragonfly, Linnaeus chose the diminutive form for dragonflies in general.
I don’t have the whole paper any more but I thought that this snippet might be of interest.
Interesting and I was further enlightened by Wikiedia about Rondelet; he was from Montpellier, Kingdom of France as it was then, and La libellule is the French for dragonfly.
I’m pretty sure that the German word for dragonfly is their word for helicopter - which seems appropriate to me.
I’ve got Guide des libellules d’Europe et d’Afrique du Nord by J. d’Aguilar et J.-L. Dommanget but I have to admit that I don’t often look at it! It has some lovely photographic ‘planches’ (plates) but they use scientific names throughout.
Oh yes. We should be more interested in derivations and simple-taxonomy - it’ll take someone who is keen and able to write simply - a Project Ken?
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I found this " Johan Christian Fabricius** coined the term Odonata in 1793 from the Ancient Greek ὀδών odṓn ([Ionic]
One hypothesis is that it was because their [maxillae] are notably toothed"
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A costly Item Ken, my visit to the lowest tide of the day now has to be tomorrow!
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Sorry! I hope that tomorrow is productive. I’ll keep quiet in the mean time.
The question was asked on Reddit, “ What do you call a dragonfly?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/m8d8ej/what_do_you_call_a_dragonfly_in_your_language/
Not all responders remembered to add their language; I liked Snáthaid mhór, which translates as big needle (an Irish contribution) but there are scores of others given. Devils and witches proliferate in the translations.
In Jamaica it’s called Devil’s Darning Needle, which neatly combines several of the options.
Devil’s darning needle is more than just Jamaican. (The British Dragonfly Society gives it as an old name for damselflies.) While trying to get an idea of where it is/was used, I found that the name is also used for several other types of organism - Devil’s darning needle - Wikipedia.
Having just watched a Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanae) ovipositing, I can see where the darning needle concept comes from!
Fascinating, so many links…
As Surreybirder says, an ovipositing dragonfly does look like it’s darning.
- 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, XXXIX:
Other Animals I observ’d to have yet a greater number, as the Dragon-Fly or Adderbolt […]. - 1742, John Martyn & Ephraim Chambers (trans.), The Philosophical History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, vol II, p. 355:
This philosopher has also found an insect fish, which transforms into an adder-bolt.
https://www.wordsense.eu/adderbolt/
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I think that second (1742) ties in with the first contribution of this forum, that of the larvae not being recognised as such.
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I found this ref: Although the latin name for Dragonflies is Odonata their infraorder is Anisoptera which comes from the Greek meaning ‘uneven wings’.
But Anisoptera is also the name for a genus of plants in the family Dipterocarpaceae. It contains ten species distributed from Chittagong in southeast of Bangladesh to New Guinea.
Zygoptera (damselflies) comes from paired (or equal) wings. (BDS).