It's Official: Dragonfly To Become State Insect

The buzz today is that the common green darner dragonfly will be the new state insect, joining petrified wood, the Western hemlock and the coast rhododendron as symbols of the Evergreen State.

Gov. Gary Locke was to sign House Bill 1320 this morning in front of students, faculty and staff members at Crestwood Elementary School in Kent, where the project was hatched by the school's Defenders of the Planet club in September to learn about the environment and politics. The project came to involve the entire school as students sent more than 25,000 ballots to schools in every county.

About 14,000 ballots, including 100 e-mail votes, came back favoring Anax junius Drury over ladybugs and green lacewings. The state-insect proposal, sponsored by Rep. Les Thomas, R-Kent, then passed both houses of the Legislature.

"The kids debated on the honeybee because it also is a native species and is good for pollination," said Wendy Shol, the club adviser. "But one of our criteria was that (the insect) wasn't harmful to humans, and bees can be. And 80 percent of the two dozen states with official insects already have the honeybee."

Youngsters think the green darner is cool because:

-- It predates dinosaurs.

-- It zaps "bad bugs."

-- It can hover in place or fly at 25 to 30 mph (slower, presumably, in school zones).

Said fifth-grader Brad Pizzalato: "It hatches from eggs and lives two to five years in the water as a nymph. Then it lives six months to a year as an adult, is green and about 5 inches long, and feeds on mosquitoes that carry diseases to humans."

Brad said he is "very proud (that) Crestwood will go into the history of Washington."

Students even talk of changing Crestwood's mascot to a dragonfly. The current mascot is a cobra - for sure a nonnative species.

Michigan has a dragonfly as its symbol. But Washington is the only state to designate the green darner.

The only catch: The green darner's natural enemy is the state fish - the steelhead trout.

Further information on the green darner dragonfly is available from the Defenders of the Planet club via The Seattle Times Today's News Web site at: http://www.seattletimes.com

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Official Washington

Washington's other official state symbols include:

Nickname: the Evergreen State.

Motto: "Alki" - Chinook (Native American/trader jargon) for "by and by."

Flower: coast rhododendron.

Bird: American (willow) goldfinch.

Tree: Western hemlock.

Gem: petrified wood.

Colors: green and gold.

Song: "Washington, My Home" by Helen Davis.

Folk song: "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On" by Woody Guthrie.

Dance: square dance.

Fruit: apple.

Grass: bluebunch wheatgrass.

Fish: steelhead trout.