Anisoptera (suborder)

Dragonfly

Every continent except Antarctica. The globe skimmer Pantala flavescens crosses oceans and shows almost no population structure worldwide, consistent with a single interbreeding global population.

Group: Odonata
IUCN: LC
Reviewed: 2026-08-25

Read this first

Popular claims checked

The claim: Dragonflies cannot fly backward, which is why Japanese warriors adopted the insect as a symbol of never retreating.

What the evidence says: Dragonflies can and do fly backward, and they can hover, fly sideways and change direction abruptly — the independent drive of fore- and hindwings is what makes that manoeuvrability possible. The kachimushi tradition is genuine and materially attested on surviving armour, so the symbolism is real; the entomological reasoning offered for it is simply wrong. This is worth stating carefully: the tradition stands, its stated rationale does not.

Why it persists: The claim is repeated because it explains the tradition neatly, and because very few people have watched a dragonfly closely enough to contradict it.

Where you'll meet it: Repetitions of the kachimushi tradition · Popular symbolism guides

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedWakeling, J. M., Ellington, C. P. (1997)
Dragonfly flight: III. Lift and power requirementsJournal of Experimental Biology, vol. 200pp. 583-600Open source

Verified observation

In nature

An aerial predator that intercepts rather than chases, steering to where the prey will be using an internal model of its own body. It captures over 95% of the insects it goes for, and a single neuron picks one target out of several and suppresses the rest.

capture successEstablished

Dragonflies capture prey in flight at success rates above 95% — among the highest recorded for any aerial predator.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedCombes, S. A., Rundle, D. E., Iwasaki, J. M., Crall, J. D. (2012)
Linking biomechanics and ecology through predator-prey interactions: flight performance of dragonflies and their preyJournal of Experimental Biology, vol. 215pp. 903-913Open source

interceptionEstablished

Dragonflies do not chase: they fly a predictive interception course, steering toward a future meeting point rather than toward where the prey currently is.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedOlberg, R. M., Worthington, A. H., Venator, K. R. (2000)
Prey pursuit and interception in dragonfliesJournal of Comparative Physiology A, vol. 186pp. 155-162Open source

internal modelSupported

Interception is driven by an internal model of the insect's own body as well as the prey's motion: the dragonfly predicts and pre-compensates for its own rotations rather than reacting to visual error.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedMischiati, Matteo, Lin, Huai-Ti, Herold, Paul, Imler, Elliot, Olberg, Robert, Leonardo, Anthony (2015)
Internal models direct dragonfly interception steeringNature, vol. 517pp. 333-338Open source

selective attentionSupported

A single identified neuron selects one target among several and suppresses responses to the others — selective attention with a winner-take-all outcome, in one cell.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedWiederman, Steven D., O'Carroll, David C. (2013)
Selective attention in an insect visual neuronCurrent Biology, vol. 23pp. 156-161Open source

opsin diversityEstablished

Dragonflies carry up to 33 visual opsin genes — by far the largest such repertoire known in insects — with different sets expressed in the upward- and downward-looking parts of the eye.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedFutahashi, Ryo, Kawahara-Miki, Ryouka, Kinoshita, Michiyo, Arikawa, Kentaro, Fukatsu, Takema (2015)
Extraordinary diversity of visual opsin genes in dragonfliesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 112pp. E1247-E1256Open source

dorsal eyeEstablished

The upper part of the eye is specialised for spotting small dark targets against bright sky, with upward-looking facets of distinct spectral and polarisation sensitivity.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedLabhart, T., Nilsson, D.-E. (1995)
The dorsal eye of the dragonfly Sympetrum: specializations for prey detection against the blue skyJournal of Comparative Physiology A, vol. 176pp. 437-453Open source

independent wingsEstablished

Dragonflies drive fore- and hindwings independently, varying the phase between the pairs to trade efficient cruising against high-force manoeuvring.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedWakeling, J. M., Ellington, C. P. (1997)
Dragonfly flight: III. Lift and power requirementsJournal of Experimental Biology, vol. 200pp. 583-600Open source

transoceanic migrationSupported

The globe skimmer undertakes a multigenerational circuit including a crossing of the western Indian Ocean; isotope signatures of individuals arriving in the Maldives point to origins in the northern Indian subcontinent.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedHobson, Keith A., Anderson, R. Charles, Soto, David X., Wassenaar, Leonard I. (2012)
Isotopic evidence that dragonflies (Pantala flavescens) migrating through the Maldives come from the northern Indian subcontinentPLoS ONE, vol. 7p. e52594Open source

global panmixiaSupported

Globe skimmers show almost no population genetic structure worldwide, consistent with a single globally interbreeding population sustained by continuous long-distance movement.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedWare, Jessica, Kohli, Manpreet Kaur, Hobson, Keith A., Suhling, Frank (2022)
Evidence for widespread gene flow and migration in the globe skimmer dragonfly Pantala flavescensInternational Journal of Odonatology, vol. 25pp. 43-55Open source

labial strikeEstablished

The larva captures prey by hydraulically shooting out a hinged labial mask driven by internal fluid pressure, in milliseconds; the aquatic larval stage lasts months to years and dominates the life cycle.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedPritchard, Gordon (1965)
Prey capture by dragonfly larvae (Odonata; Anisoptera)Canadian Journal of Zoology, vol. 43pp. 271-289Open source

Evidence to reflection

What the behavior can suggest

This section is interpretation, not evidence. It reads documented behavior as a human character trait — a comparison we are drawing, not something the animal intends.

precise

Positive

Dragonflies steer to where the prey will be rather than where it is, using an internal model of their own body, and capture over 95% of what they go for.

The insect is not reacting; it is predicting, and correcting for its own movement while doing so. Read as character, that is someone who acts on where things are heading rather than where they stand, and who accounts for their own effect on the situation in the same calculation. The success rate is what makes the analogy land: this is not a hopeful strategy but a near-certain one.

You aim at where it is going, and you allow for the fact that you are moving too.

calculating

Mixed

One identified neuron selects a single target from several and suppresses the response to all the others.

Attention here is not distributed but decided: the cell picks one and shuts the rest out, in a nervous system with no room for deliberation. Read as character, that is someone who cannot hold several possibilities at once and does not try — one thing gets chosen and everything else stops existing until it is finished. Marked mixed because that is exactly as much a limitation as a strength.

You cannot hold two options open. One gets picked and the other stops existing.

inherited direction

Mixed

The globe skimmer's ocean crossing takes more than one generation, and the species shows almost no genetic structure anywhere in the world.

No individual completes the circuit, and because the movement never stops the species has no local populations at all — everywhere is one place. Read as character, that is belonging to a project larger than a lifetime, at the cost of belonging nowhere in particular. Marked mixed for exactly that trade.

You are part of something that outlasts you, and you are from nowhere in particular.

patient

Positive

The larval stage lasts months to years underwater and dominates the life cycle; the larva feeds by shooting out a hinged mask in milliseconds.

Most of this animal's life is spent submerged and waiting, and the strike that ends the waiting takes a thousandth of the time. Read as character, that is someone whose visible action is a tiny fraction of their actual duration — the flying insect everyone recognises is the brief final phase of a life mostly spent underwater.

What people see of you is the last short phase. Most of it happened underwater where nobody was looking.

Named tradition

Traditional symbolism

These accounts are attributed to specific peoples and sources. They are not merged into a generic Native tradition.

Yamato Japanese (Nihonjin)

The Akitsushima epithet is recorded in a text of 720 CE; the martial kachimushi usage is historical, the motif remains current. Living tradition.

Name in language: Akitsu (dragonfly); kachimushi ('victory insect')

An ancient poetic name for Japan is Akitsushima, 'Dragonfly Island'. The Nihon Shoki of 720 CE records Emperor Jinmu surveying the Yamato plain and comparing its encircling mountains to a dragonfly curled licking its own tail. In the medieval and Edo periods the insect was called kachimushi, 'victory insect', and appeared on helmets, sword fittings and armour — the stated reasoning being that it advances and does not retreat.

Context: The martial motif is unusually well attested materially, appearing on surviving armour and sword fittings rather than only in texts.

Sources (1)

Academic bookAston, W. G. (1896)
Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner

Hopi (Hopituh Shi-nu-mu)

Documented from the late 19th century; the iconography remains in use. Living tradition.

Name in language: Rendered as a vertical stroke crossed by one or two bars

The dragonfly is a water and rain symbol in Hopi visual practice, appearing on pottery, textiles and ceremonial objects, and is bound to narratives in which a dragonfly is created to carry a message or to sustain people during famine by bringing water and growth. In a dryland farming society the association is with the presence of water rather than with speed or predation.

Context: This is a striking divergence from the Japanese reading of the same insect: martial advance in one tradition, water and rain in the other, from the same animal.

Sources (1)

EthnographyFewkes, Jesse Walter (1898)
Archeological expedition to Arizona in 1895Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 2, Government Printing Officepp. 519-744

Modern Western material

Modern readings

Modern Western material, published in the 20th or 21st century. Listed to show what the popular genre claims — not as evidence about any people.

Core shamanism (Michael Harner, Foundation for Shamanic Studies)

First published 1980

Contemporary practice

Core shamanism reads the dragonfly as a power animal of illusion and of seeing through it, retrieved on the journey and associated with shifting perspective and breaking a fixed way of looking.

Our assessment: The two documented traditions here disagree with each other and with this reading: Japanese usage is martial — an insect on armour that advances and does not retreat — while Hopi usage is about water and rain in a farming society. Neither is about illusion. The 'illusion' motif appears to derive from the insect's iridescence, which is a modern Western association rather than an inherited one.

Sources (3)

Modern deckHarner, Michael (1980)
The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and HealingHarper & Rowpp. 57-72
Academic bookWallis, Robert J. (2003)
Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary PagansRoutledgepp. 29-49
Academic bookZnamenski, Andrei A. (2007)
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western ImaginationOxford University Presspp. 233-264

Open research questions

Replace Aston 1896 with a modern scholarly translation of the Nihon Shoki and give a book and section reference.
Find a Hopi-authored or Hopi-approved source for the dragonfly water symbolism, given the Tribe's stated position on Fewkes-era material.