I had never been to Florida and I was being sent there for my job. It was very exciting. In 1976, there was an exposition at the Kennedy Space Center and the US Geological Survey (who I was working for at the time) was one of the groups with a display. Our display showed how much water and other resources the United States used as a running total. It was an electronic display and was quite impressive (and a little scary - making you think about all the stuff we were using at such a fast rate) except it wasn't working. They needed someone to go there and fix it. I was the new guy and the youngest and the unmarried one so it was pretty obvious who they were going to pick to go. But I'd never traveled for the job before and I certainly didn't know what to expect in Florida.
One of the admonitions was to take plenty of changes of clothes. "You'll be sweating a lot," they said. "You'll be wanting to change your clothes often." Also, I was warned about the sun. "Take lots of sun-block," I was told. And finally, "Take plenty of bug spray with you," they said. Apparently, there were a lot of mosquitoes in Florida.
When I got there, I immediately realized that my friends had been right about the sun and the heat. But as I was driving the car along the highway, I was impressed by the number of dragonflies I saw. They were flying everywhere and were very active. I knew that dragonflies eat mosquitoes so I was very happy that at least one of my worries would not be a problem. Boy, was I wrong! I not only found a LOT of mosquitoes but they were big and they were fast. The bug spray worked pretty well but I was still miserable. It was then that I realized I hadn't been paying attention in the Predator-Prey Population Studies section of my biology classes in college. If the dragonflies had eliminated most of the mosquitoes, there wouldn't be that many dragonflies left. There were plenty of mosquitoes to go around for the dragonflies and still enough to chase me. In case you're interested, here's a paper to get you started. And don't forget the bug spray.
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