Globe Skimmer Dragonfly

Globe skimmers achieve what seems impossible: dragonflies crossing oceans. Each year, millions migrate from India to East Africa across 3,500 kilometers of open water—no land, no rest stops, no permanent pools for aquatic larvae. The journey spans multiple generations, with dragonflies breeding in temporary rain pools on islands and coastlines. Each generation advances the migration, following monsoon rains that create ephemeral breeding habitat along the route.

The strategy exploits a narrow window of opportunity. Monsoons create temporary pools from India through the Maldives to the Seychelles and on to Africa. Globe skimmers must time arrival precisely—too early and pools don't exist; too late and they've dried. The migration tracks this moving band of suitable habitat across the Indian Ocean, with each generation contributing one leg of a relay that no individual could complete.

Globe skimmers have the widest distribution of any dragonfly, found on every continent except Antarctica. This cosmopolitan success reflects their strategy: instead of defending permanent territories, they exploit temporary resources worldwide. When monsoons fail, populations crash. When conditions align, they're everywhere. The business parallel reveals how ephemeral resource exploitation enables global reach. Companies can achieve worldwide presence by chasing temporary opportunities rather than establishing permanent operations—consulting firms deploying to wherever projects emerge, disaster response organizations following crises, pop-up retail tracking seasonal demand. The strategy requires extreme adaptability and accepts volatility as the cost of reach.