The second Saturday in June is National Dragonfly Day. Ten things you might not know about dragonflies:
Dragonflies belong to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata.
The name of the infraorder comes from the Greek words for "unequal" and "wing" because dragonflies' hindwings are broader than their forewings. The order Odonta includes damselflies and is so named because members of the order have serrated teeth. There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies.
Dragonflies have been around for 300 million years; they were among Earth’s first insects. Fossils have been found of dragonflies with wingspans of up to two feet. They’re a bit smaller now, with most falling in the range of two to five inches.
Their lifespan is long in insect terms. They can live up to 6.5 years in the wild although most of this time is spent in the larval stage. Adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks or up to a year.
They are skilled and agile fliers and catch their prey on the wing. In fact, that’s the only way they can eat so if a dragonfly can’t fly it would starve. Dragonflies can judge the speed and trajectory of a target and adjust their flight accordingly. They're so skilled they have up to a 97% success rate when hunting. When they catch something they hold it in their Feet and tear off its wings using its teeth before eating it, all without needing to land.
Dragonflies can fly in any direction, including sideways and backwards, and can hover in a single spot for more than a minute. They're fast, too, with some species reaching a top speed of 18 mph. There’s one species, as well, which can fly incredible distances. The globe skimmer flies 11,000 miles over the sea in what's considered to be the world's longest insect migration.
Their heads are mostly Eyes. Their eyes are huge and are made up of 30,000 facets. This gives them nearly 360-degree vision, with just one blind spot directly behind them.
Many dragonflies, particularly males, are territorial. They’ll defend a territory against other dragonflies. They might be defending a perch which gives them a good view over an insect-rich feeding ground, or for access to females.
A single dragonfly can eat hundreds of Mosquitoes per day.
In folklore, for the Navajo, dragonflies symbolise pure Water, while in Japan, they are associated with the season of Autumn and are symbols of rebirth, courage, strength, and happiness.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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