6 Things You Never Knew About Dragonflies

This guide provides a practical overview of 6 Things You Never Knew About Dragonflies, including its main features, benefits, limitations, and important considerations.

Dragonflies are distributed almost everywhere in the world, especially hot and humid tropical areas, and are animals familiar to humans. However, in reality, there are still many things about dragonflies that we have never known.

Here are 6 facts that many people have never known about the unique, ancient and extremely diverse insect species.

Dragonflies can catch prey in midair

A dragonfly is enjoying a protein-rich meal

Assuming you're a small insect, such as a mosquito, encountering dragonflies would be your worst nightmare. Not only is the dragonfly's superior size, the airborne hunting skill is also classified as the upper hand in the insect world.

They can capture their prey with highly calculated and extremely scientific aerial ambushes. The dragonfly can judge the speed and trajectory of the prey and adjust its flight speed / trajectory to capture the prey alive. The success rate of dragonfly hunting is up to 95%.

Dragonfly - the creepiest 'butcher' of the insect world

Dragonfly is a perfect hunting machine

Besides impressive hunting techniques, the ability to tear off the prey of a dragonfly is also extremely frightening.

When hunting, dragonflies catch and hold their prey with their feet, tearing off their prey with sharp jaws so that they cannot escape and start the meal immediately - all done in the air.

Surplus flying ability

Each wing of the dragonfly can operate independently

Talking about the ability to fly, not many species in the animal kingdom can be compared to dragonflies. They have two extremely thin wings but are controlled by very strong muscle fibers in the chest. This allows them to fly in any direction, both horizontal and backward, as well as being able to stand still in a single position in the air for a minute or more. This astonishing ability is a factor that contributes to their impressive success in hunting - simply striking from any direction.

Speed and endurance are also respectable factors of this animal. They can fly at a maximum speed of 29km / h, during long trips to over 17,000km.

The dragonfly's head is almost covered with eyes

Dragonflies have nearly 360-degree vision

The area of the head of a dragonfly is mostly covered with giant paired eyes, with a total of nearly 30,000 small faces. Each of these eyes gives them a bit of information about their surroundings.

Dragonflies have nearly 360-degree vision, only a single blind spot is right behind them. The extraordinary vision is one of the reasons why these insects almost never collide while flying, and help them detect enemies as well as prey from all directions.

Dragonflies live for about 2 years underwater

Dragonfly larvae

Dragonflies lay eggs in water and when the larvae hatch, they stay underwater for up to two years. In fact, depending on altitude and latitude, some dragonfly species can be in larval states for up to 6 years. They will molt up to 17 times until they grow up and turn into the dragonflies we see in the air.

During the larval stage, they are especially adapted to aquatic life, typically the ability to catch prey at an extremely fast pace. The menu of dragonfly larvae is quite diverse, they eat insect larvae (including their fellow), tadpoles and even fish - as long as they 'fit'!

Some dragonflies lay their eggs in salt water

Very few insects can lay eggs in salt water, except for some dragonflies, such as the sea dragonfly Erythrodiplax berenicei. They can reproduce successfully in water with high salinity.

This extraordinary ability of Erythrodiplax berenicei has evolved over millions of years, because its habitats are mainly salt marshes, mangroves and salt lakes.