It is good to have a backup plan.

Hermann August Hagen’s parents must have known this and they planned well for their child’s interest and financial security. They nurtured their young son’s fascination with nature, and they also made sure that he had a fallback career as a man of medicine.

Dr. Hagen was born is East Prussia in the early 19th century. His curiosity about natural history narrowed its focus into a study of insects, specifically Odonates, when as a youth he found a dragonfly. According to one biographical account: “By chance the first specimen he caught proved to be an undescribed insect of that order.”

Call it beginner’s luck or, perhaps, destiny. Hagen lived a life of medicine and entomology, succeeding in both, and eventually came to the United States in 1867 at the invitation of Louis Agassiz. 

Agassiz asked Hagen to join him at Harvard, where Hagen finished out his illustrious career studying and documenting the dragonflies of this country.

One of those dashing dragonflies that he is credited with recording and naming is the Autumn Meadowhawk. Even if it is November, one can still see this flying insect up until a very hard frost. I was lucky enough to observe one last week.

The last dragonfly of the year finds sanctuary in sunny spots, including sun-warmed rocks, which might explain the scientific name it was given by Hagen. Sympetrum vicinun is loosely translated to “in the neighborhood with rocks,” and describes this habit. Autumn Meadowhawks were also called yellow-legged meadowhawks, though that name has lost favor.

These dragonflies can be bright red, yellow or tan, depending on their age and gender, and are sizeable (up to one and a quarter inches). While they breed around ponds and wetlands, they can be seen a bit afield of those waterbodies. The one I observed was sunning itself on a picnic table. They are the season’s and genus’ latest and last dragonflies observable before winter sets in, and can fly even at temperatures as low as 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Perhaps Autumn Meadowhawks’ greatest claim to fame is their predator prowess. Dragonflies are known to be excellent hunters, and this one is exceptionally successful. A favorite food for Meadowhawks is mosquitoes, and these dragonflies can eat hundreds of mosquitoes per day. With extraordinary eyesight enabled by compound eyes that have 30,000 facets called ommatidia, this dragonfly has a 97 per cent success rate for catching prey. Beware to any that catch their eyes.

Before long, and likely sooner that we’d like, these dragonflies will be gone. Their eggs, laid earlier in the season by mated adults in tandem, will overwinter in ponds and emerge in the spring as nymphs, called naiads, which will eventually metamorphose into adults, all within their one-year life cycle.

Meadowhawk parents provide no guidance or care for offspring, which are on their own for their whole life. Those young will never be able to take advantage of the advice and support of adult caregivers like Hagen was. but their lives, like his, have function and significance of their own.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.