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The Creature From Before The Dinosaurs

Dragonflies have existed on the earth for over 250 million years which is quite remarkable. Another interesting thing about them is that they can move each of their four wings independently. This makes them incredibly adept at flying. They can fly straight up or down and also backwards. They can reach a speed of about 30 miles per hour.They need good vision to safely maneuver so quickly and they have that as well. Their huge eyes cover almost all of their head and they use around 80% of their brain to process visual information. A dragonfly has nearly 360 degrees of vision.

Every summer I get a few pictures of them in my yard. This is one of my favorites that I have taken and it’s from last summer. The plant it’s perched on, the bokeh, and the position of the sun were all pretty much perfect and I got an incredible set of around 20 photos of this one. I noticed that if you approach one that is perched and it flies away then stay there they will often return to the same perch.

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  1. Oh what a great idea! Wisdom indeed. I had moved from California… to Tejas… to New York so that is a radical change for some creatures and life cycles etc. Thanks for sharing that! I let years go by just figuring that out instead of researching.

    • The pictures make identifying them possible without catching a specimen. It’s better. After I found out which butterflies were living here I could look up the host plants and the life cycle for them and it helps to decide what to do when in my yard. I lived in a city for over 3 decades so I had to do some observing to understand where I live now.

    • What has happened to me often is that they will be perched and I’ll try to approach and they fly off so I stop and stay right there and often they come back to the same spot. sometimes several times in a row. That’s how I got the 30 some pictures I have of them.

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