How many kinds of dragonflies are there?

 

Graphic: Antique dragonfly, from openclipart 

My wife and I were out walking, when I saw a dragonfly. She remarked that this one was black and white, and innocently asked me what kind it was. (I hadn't a clue.) I innocently remarked that dragonflies are of many colors, and that there are hundreds of kinds of them, although most of these kinds don't live around where we do. Then she asked me, innocently, if God made each kind of dragonfly, or if they descended and diverged from other kinds. She also asked, innocently, if there wouldn't be a web page, or something, which told us which of these types of events happened.

Well, yes and no. There are some web pages, and/or books, which claim that each kind of organism was made by a separate miracle. For example, see this page, which doesn't specifically say that each creature was created by a distinct miracle, but says that the six days of Genesis 1 were literal 24-hour days, so it would have been impossible for some kind of evolutionary process to produce all the species of dragonflies. (Genesis 1 does not specifically mention flying insects, let alone dragonflies.)

There are also many books and web pages which claim that animals developed into many species, over long periods of time, by completely natural processes -- there is no God, and never was. Here is the Wikipedia web page on an introduction to evolution.

Though you probably don't hear much from them, there are other sources that believe in a Creator. Some of these believe that the days of Genesis 1 were very long periods of time, thus allowing for evolution of dragonflies from a common ancestor. Others who believe in a creator believe that Genesis 1 was never meant to teach science, and that it is a mistake to do so. Genesis 1-2, they say, were meant to teach important truths, such as that there is only one God, not many, like the peoples living around the Israelites believed. And God is sovereign. Further, humans are more like God than any other animal, and have some responsibility to care for God's creation. Genesis 1 and 2 were not, in their view, to be taken literally. This last group holds that God's marvelous original creation included built-in laws, processes and properties of atoms and molecules, and rocks and clouds, that led, over a very long time, to the world we have today.   

To answer my wife's question, there are about 3000 species of dragonflies living on earth today. There were fossil dragonflies, too. Some dragonfly-like insects had wingspans as long as your arm, or even longer. Just don't ask me to identify them.

Appendix See these posts: "Should Genesis 1-2 be taken literally?"

"Young-earth creationism and the kinds of animals"

"Is Genesis 1-11 history, or myth? Comparing the sequence of events in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2"