Dragonfly Facts
Dragonfly Facts
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| Interesting Dragonfly Facts: |
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| Dragonflies vary in size, depending on the species. Smallest dragonflies have a wingspan of 7/10 of inches, while the largest species have a wingspan of 6 inches. |
| Prehistoric dragonflies were huge animals with wingspan of up to 2 feet. |
| Dragonflies have serrated teeth. Because of that, dragonflies are classified in the order of insects called Odonata (which means "one with teeth" in Greek language). |
| Diet of a dragonfly is changing throughout its life. During the larval stage, dragonfly eats tadpoles, mosquitoes, small fish and other water larvae. Adult dragonfly eats different type of insects. |
| Dragonflies are very useful animals because they are killing a lot of dangerous or annoying insects and keep the pest under control. |
| Single dragonfly is able to kill from 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day. |
| Dragonfly hunts in the air by grabbing its prey with legs. Dragonfly with damaged wings will die out of starvation. |
| Dragonfly is highly efficient hunter. Experiments showed that dragonfly can catch 90-95% of offered prey. |
| Dragonfly has two sets of wings which can be used simultaneously or one after another. Wings of dragonfly will move 30 times per second during the flight. |
| Dragonflies are excellent flyers. They can perform different kind of acrobatics in the air: fly like a chopper and easily fly upwards or downwards. They can even mate in the air. |
| Certain species of dragonflies are migratory. They will travel shorter or longer distances from north to the south to avoid cold weather during the winter. Globe skimmed dragonfly is able to fly 11 000 miles over the Indian Ocean during the migration. |
| Dragonfly has excellent eye sight. They have huge, compound eyes, composed of up to 30 000 lenses. Since their eyes are curved, dragonflies can see images from different directions at the same time. |
| Dragonflies undergo incomplete metamorphosis. They will pass three stages in their development: egg, nymph (larva) and adult insect. |
| Female lays up to 800 eggs in the water. Eggs will turn into larvae that live in the water until the stage of adult insects. Adult dragonflies spend their life in the air. |
| Dragonflies can survive from few weeks to couple of years, depending on the species. Larval stage is always the longest stage in their lifecycle. |
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