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Specimen No. 87. Prism-Wing Skimmer
Specimen No. 87
Name: Prism-Wing Skimmer | Calopteryx vitreata
Discovered by: Dr. Horace Bellamy
Date of Discovery: 14 August 1932
Locality: Isles of Shoals, Gulf of Maine, USA
Catalog No. FD - 23 - 87
By 1932, Dr. Horace Bellamy was a man accustomed to the polite irrelevance that follows a career left mostly unfinished. His early reputation—as the promising young entomologist from New Haven who could pin a moth without bending a wing—had evaporated in the humid greenhouses of the Yale Peabody, where small disputes over classification hardened into larger disagreements about temperament. When he left the mainland for the Isles of Shoals that summer, it was said he was chasing “better air,” though the truth was that he was chasing time—specifically, the sort of unhurried hours in which one might stumble upon something worthy of keeping.
The Isles in August were stripped of ornament: the tourists gone, the gardens seared to stalk and stone, the air holding just enough salt to keep the horizon uncommitted. Bellamy, with a canvas satchel and an almost threadbare field journal, walked the low cliffs at dawn. It was on such a morning—sky bleached, sea subdued—that he first saw the Prism-Wing Skimmer.
He noticed it not by its motion, but by its stillness. Perched on the stem of a sea lavender, the insect’s four wings caught the light as if refracting it through some invisible cathedral. Bands of carmine yielded to emerald; lattices of cobalt dissolved into chartreuse; panels of rose leaned toward gold. Each segment appeared to have been laid deliberately, like the tesserae of an ancient mosaic, but without symmetry—an artistry belonging to no human hand. The abdomen, long and slender, shimmered from turquoise to deep marine as the tide shifted beneath the rocks.
Bellamy approached as one does a painting—half in admiration, half in calculation. He sketched in a brisk but reverent hand, knowing from the tilt of the thorax and the occasional twitch of its hindwing that his subject would not remain. In less than a minute, the Skimmer lifted, moving not forward but upward—vanishing into a seam of sunlight where the morning haze broke.
His field note for the day was brief:
“Calopteryx vitreata — Color divisions unlike any recorded in Odonata. Absent the natural economy of pattern. As if intended for display rather than survival. Observed 14 August 1932, White Island. No specimen collected. Memory remains intact.”.
The drawing was later found among Bellamy’s papers, stored in a cedar box with a frayed map of the Isles. By the time it reached the archives, only the right half of the insect had been rendered in color—the rest, a ghost in graphite. Some say the incomplete rendering was the result of a hasty departure. Others suspect Bellamy left it unfinished on purpose, a silent agreement between observer and observed.
Either way, the Prism-Wing Skimmer remains a half-seen marvel—proof that sometimes the fragment is enough.
Note: High quality archival glicée print on acid-free paper, a method that creates fine art reproductions with exceptional color accuracy and longevity. Pigments-based inks are designed to resist fading and discoloration and capture the finest details and subtle color variations with great precision.
Housed in a 4×6” crystal-clear acrylic specimen block, its 1” depth allows freestanding display. Each piece is designed to exhibit on desk or shelf..
Fly Design uses a practice known as entonology — the study of fictitious insects — to reimagine the natural world through scientific storytelling and poetic design.
Specimen No. 87
Name: Prism-Wing Skimmer | Calopteryx vitreata
Discovered by: Dr. Horace Bellamy
Date of Discovery: 14 August 1932
Locality: Isles of Shoals, Gulf of Maine, USA
Catalog No. FD - 23 - 87
By 1932, Dr. Horace Bellamy was a man accustomed to the polite irrelevance that follows a career left mostly unfinished. His early reputation—as the promising young entomologist from New Haven who could pin a moth without bending a wing—had evaporated in the humid greenhouses of the Yale Peabody, where small disputes over classification hardened into larger disagreements about temperament. When he left the mainland for the Isles of Shoals that summer, it was said he was chasing “better air,” though the truth was that he was chasing time—specifically, the sort of unhurried hours in which one might stumble upon something worthy of keeping.
The Isles in August were stripped of ornament: the tourists gone, the gardens seared to stalk and stone, the air holding just enough salt to keep the horizon uncommitted. Bellamy, with a canvas satchel and an almost threadbare field journal, walked the low cliffs at dawn. It was on such a morning—sky bleached, sea subdued—that he first saw the Prism-Wing Skimmer.
He noticed it not by its motion, but by its stillness. Perched on the stem of a sea lavender, the insect’s four wings caught the light as if refracting it through some invisible cathedral. Bands of carmine yielded to emerald; lattices of cobalt dissolved into chartreuse; panels of rose leaned toward gold. Each segment appeared to have been laid deliberately, like the tesserae of an ancient mosaic, but without symmetry—an artistry belonging to no human hand. The abdomen, long and slender, shimmered from turquoise to deep marine as the tide shifted beneath the rocks.
Bellamy approached as one does a painting—half in admiration, half in calculation. He sketched in a brisk but reverent hand, knowing from the tilt of the thorax and the occasional twitch of its hindwing that his subject would not remain. In less than a minute, the Skimmer lifted, moving not forward but upward—vanishing into a seam of sunlight where the morning haze broke.
His field note for the day was brief:
“Calopteryx vitreata — Color divisions unlike any recorded in Odonata. Absent the natural economy of pattern. As if intended for display rather than survival. Observed 14 August 1932, White Island. No specimen collected. Memory remains intact.”.
The drawing was later found among Bellamy’s papers, stored in a cedar box with a frayed map of the Isles. By the time it reached the archives, only the right half of the insect had been rendered in color—the rest, a ghost in graphite. Some say the incomplete rendering was the result of a hasty departure. Others suspect Bellamy left it unfinished on purpose, a silent agreement between observer and observed.
Either way, the Prism-Wing Skimmer remains a half-seen marvel—proof that sometimes the fragment is enough.
Note: High quality archival glicée print on acid-free paper, a method that creates fine art reproductions with exceptional color accuracy and longevity. Pigments-based inks are designed to resist fading and discoloration and capture the finest details and subtle color variations with great precision.
Housed in a 4×6” crystal-clear acrylic specimen block, its 1” depth allows freestanding display. Each piece is designed to exhibit on desk or shelf..
Fly Design uses a practice known as entonology — the study of fictitious insects — to reimagine the natural world through scientific storytelling and poetic design.