Wild Wednesday - Dragonfly
Our wild thing this week is the beautiful dragonfly which were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet!
There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies, including damselflies, belonging to the order Odonata, which means “toothed one” in Greek and refers to the dragonfly’s serrated teeth.
They are expert fliers, can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey which they catch with their feet, while flying.
Our picture was taken in a garden in Rustington.
Read more here: Dragonfly - Wikipedia