What is this thing doing in Ham House?
Ostensibly it’s a simple stylized tile around one of the fireplaces below stairs at the splendidly handsome 17th century National Trust property Ham House, near Richmond. And despite its wiggly tail and unfeasibly long legs of uncertain number, it is obviously a dragonfly. But what species?
Ordinarily it would not matter, and anyway identification would be impossible, because the artists of most insect-themed antiquarian objets more or less made up the designs based on rather vague patterns that appear to have been copies of copies of copies of imaginary beings.
But this one actually looks like a genuine and obvious insect. The 12-spotted skimmer, Libella pulchella, is a beautiful and distinctive North American dragonfly, with pale blue body and strongly spotted wings.
12-spotted skimmer, image filched from Wikipedia.
Could this really be a North American species that has somehow been morphed through Chinese-influenced Low Countries ceramic tiles to end up in a Home Counties manor house?
Or perhaps I’m imagining things.
Bugman Jones 
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