Bill Lindemann, area naturalist, will present a program, “300 Million Years of Predation: Dragonflies and Damselflies,” on Tuesday September 9th at the Gillespie County Agricultural Extension Service Building, 95 Frederick Road in Fredericksburg, beginning at 7:00PM. This presentation is sponsored by the Friends of the Fredericksburg Nature Center as part of their nature series; the nature series begins its ninth year of programs on all topics related to nature on the second Tuesday of the month throughout the school year.

Lindemann, a retired exploration geologist, helped organize the Friends of the Fredericksburg Nature Center and serves as its president. He has had a long involvement with the Native Plant Society of Texas and currently serves as vice-president of the Hill Country Land Trust. Lindemann will be speaking and guiding tours at the Roswell, New Mexico Dragonfly Festival on September 5-7. He has been a newspaper columnist on Birding in the Hill Country for the past eleven years and frequent speaker on nature topics in the area and state.

Lindemann will showcase the incredible history of dragonflies and damselflies, also known as odonates. These voracious predators first appeared in the geological record about 325 million years ago when the earth was dominated by fern forests and reptiles. Their survival of several global extinction episodes, including the one that ended the dinosaur reign, features a life that begins in an aquatic habitat and continues in the skies, where they are among the world’s most skilled fliers. Lindemann will show how these insects emerge from a beastly appearing aquatic nymph to become colorful sky pirates.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information on the program, or the Friends of the Fredericksburg nature center, please call John Huecksteadt at 830-997-4843.