Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra was born in The Netherlands but grew up in Egypt, drawing and describing his first dragonflies when he was 12 years old. Finding The Netherlands’ first Vagrant Emperor dragonfly, an African visitor, focused his passion when he was 20. He has since spent over 1000 days surveying dragonflies all over Africa and has described 78 species as new (over 10% of those known in the continent). 60 species were described in one paper in 2015 to draw attention to the lack of support for taxonomy and natural history. He authored the highly successful Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe (2006), The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Eastern Africa: Handbook for all Odonata from Sudan to Zimbabwe (2014), and is an honorary research associate at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (The Netherlands) and the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). He says, “For me, dragonflies and damselflies stand for our unconditional love of nature. They do not help to feed us like bees and fish do; they are not feared and persecuted like mosquitoes and snakes; nor are they studied as proxies of human psyche and society like ants and apes. Their beauty and sensitivity stand for the state and needs of nature before our own. We admire dragonflies purely for what they are.”
