What We Have in Common

Odonates and I have these things in common:

1. We are carnivorous.
2. We begin life in watery realms and emerge into air, which then we breathe.
3. We have teeth.

Their teeth give Odonates their name. Beaton (2007) states that "a Greek word that refers to teeth on the mandibles" (p. 2): from odontos, the order name Odonata.

It's about this last shared characteristic that I have been thinking all day and, indeed, for many days.

Once again, my teeth betray me -- as they have throughout my life. This time, following work on a new bridge (for the place where the adult tooth that should have been never appeared), three other teeth hurt. And I mean hurt. Root canals, perhaps, and worse -- nerve damage possibly. Just more major expenses along the long continuum of my poor dental health.

One of my brothers sympathized by telling me this is what comes of outliving evolution. Maybe. But even as a five-year-old, I was already under the care of an orthodontist.

Briefly today, but only briefly, I forgot my own teeth and watched a female Blue-fronted Dancer flit, catch her her lunch courses, land, and consume other smaller bugs. Her teeth I could not see, but her evolutionary skill I could.

I hope she doesn't outlive the usefulness of her teeth, too.

Beaton, G. (2007). Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast. Athens: University of Georgia.