Most insects with wide ranges break into local populations that diverge genetically, because few individuals cross the barriers between them. The globe skimmer does not. Samples from locations on different continents come back with mitochondrial and nuclear markers so similar that they are best read as a single interbreeding population.
The behaviour behind that pattern is long-distance flight on prevailing winds. Globe skimmers ride seasonal wind systems, gliding on broad hindwings rather than flapping continuously, which makes the crossing energetically cheap. Swarms appear over open ocean and on islands hundreds of kilometres from the nearest breeding water, and the timing of arrivals tracks the movement of the rain belts the species depends on for its temporary breeding pools.
One widely repeated figure, a circuit of roughly 14,000 to 18,000 kilometres across the Indian Ocean, is often quoted as one dragonfly's round trip. The proposal it comes from describes an annual circuit completed by several successive generations, reconstructed from wind patterns, arrival timing and isotope evidence rather than from tracking a marked insect. The genetic uniformity is solid; the route of any single dragonfly is not.