Dengue Can be Fought with Newly Discovered Damselfly Found in Threatened Rainforest By Michael A. Bengwayan

Dengue Can be Fought with Newly Discovered Damselfly Found in Threatened Rainforest

By Michael A. Bengwayan

MANILA, Philippines, October 18,  - The vanishing damselflies and dragonflies in the Philippines, considered by ecologists to be nature's best predator of disease bearing mosquitos, are stronger by one with the discovery of a new damselfly species.

The insect, never before seen by scientists and totally unknown to the world of science, was discovered clinging to life in a rainforest threatened by logging in Cebu, an island province of the Philippines.

The new damselfly, temporarily tagged Cebu recionemis, was discovered in the Tabunan forest by Teobaldo Borromeo, a Filipino entomologist and lepidopterist who works as a research aide with the Germany based Senckenberg Museum. He is also known for having identified as many as fifty butterflies in Cebu.

Damselflies and dragonflies, in the order Odonata, are considered the most important predator of mosquitoes including some of the most dangerous ones such as Aedes aegypti which spreads dengue fever and the Anopheles mosquito which is responsible for malaria.

In the Philippines damselflies have become increasingly rare due to widespread agricultural insecticide misuse and abuse and unabated destruction of ponds and swamps which are the insects' natural habitat.

The discovery, now confirmed by entomologists like Dr. Franz Scheidenshwarz of the University of San Carlos in Cebu, has yet to be recorded in the "List of Odonata of the World," a universal documentation of damselflies and dragonflies being compiled by entomologists Martin Schorr and Martin Linbeboom of Germany and American Dennis Paulson.

The World Dragonfly Association (WDA) and the International Dragonfly Fund (IDA), agencies created to protect and conduct research on damselflies and dragonflies, have yet to receive an official communique of the recent discovery.

No photographs are available of the newly discovered damselfly.

Worldwide, there are 29 known families and 5,000 species of dragonflies and damselflies. In the U.S. alone, there are 11 families and 407 species.

In the Philippines before l980, some 23 families and 689 species were known to exist. The discovery of the damselfly in the Tabunan forest of Cebu would now increase the number of species nationally to 690 and worldwide to 5001.

Professor Bony Ligat, a University of Queensland, Australian-educated entomologist says the insects' existence is of great economic importance. Regarded as beneficial insects, they feed largely on mosquitos, gnats and flies, consuming them in great numbers. With eyes having as many as 28,000 facets, they can spot mosquitos 25 feet away and travelling at the speed of 60 mph, can home on their prey. Swarms of them can rid a pond of mosquitos effectively, Professor Ligat says.

Since 1960s, in its effort to get rid of malaria carrying Anopheles mosquitoes, Philippine health officials bombarded ponds, lakes and swamps with DDT, unaware that in doing so, not only did they kill Anopheles mosquitos but many beneficial insects like dragonflies and damselflies as well.

Today, health authorities are doing the same thing, fogging water holes with deadly chemicals to rid the Aedes aegypti that spreads dengue, Ligat laments. Dragonflies and damselflies are the first line of defense against mosquito build-up, Professor Ligat says. They are even more effective than frogs and spiders, because of their mobility. Even their naiads (hatchlings) feed on mosquito larvae in the water.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its most recent Dengue Information Report says it is trying to identify fish species that can eat dengue mosquito larvae. The late Dr. Charles Cheng, an award winning medical researcher and director of the Filipino Chinese General Hospital in Baguio City said, dragonflies and damselflies are better alternatives to fishes. He recommended a program which can reintroduce the damselflies in existing freshwaters in communities where dengue exists.

Based on reports from the Philippine Department of Health, Dr. Cheng estimated that dengue fever has killed 1,656 people and infected 32,887 in the Philippines from 1995 to 1998.

Globally, WHO says there are 50 to 100 million cases of dengue fever, two thirds in South Asia and the Southeast Asia region. The global prevalence of dengue fever has grown dramatically in recent decades, and epidemics are larger and more frequent, Dr. Cheng said.

Dr. Tony Bautista, a regional director of the Department of Health who heads the anti-dengue program, said he welcomes research that would look at the breeding of dragonflies and damselflies and the re-introduction of them into freshwater areas.

But reintroduction would not be easy, Professor Ligat says, since these insects breed in freshwater ponds and swamps, which are rare nowadays in the Philippines, because of pollution and deforestation.

Damselflies belong to the suborder Zygoptera and dragonflies to suborder Anisoptera of the order Odonata. Damselflies are smaller and slender compared to dragonflies. They are sometimes called "snake doctors," "devil's darling needles" and "mosquito hawks."

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Michael  A. Bengwayan is  a journalist and social entrepreneur, fighting environmental decay and poverty in the Cordillera region of the Philippines by creating local solutions to solve some of the world's environmental problems. He is introducing nitrogen fixing trees to enrich soil fertility, provide livestock forage, and enhance soil and water conservation. He discovered and is teaching people about making biofuel from petroleum nut for cooking (as a replacement for LPG), lighting, heating, and drying as well as running small gasoline engines. He is promoting rainwater harvesting for household and farm use, and he is training farmers, women, and youth on environmental enterprises and organic gardening. Michael holds postgraduate degrees in environmental science, rural development, and development studies and is a past Fellow of the Ford Foundation, European Union, Reinhard Mohn, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) in the US, Ireland, Sweden and Belgium.

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/michael-bengwayan