Beautiful Tiny Fighter Jets of Mosquito Murder

Beautiful Tiny Fighter Jets of Mosquito Murder

Kris loves dragonflies.  Every once in a while, we go out to find some.  The picture above was taken last year at the pond at CSUN, California State University Northridge.  We’ve been back a couple of times this year, but we haden’t seen as many as last year.  We named this little guy Zack.  As you can see from the picture below, he was pretty friendly.

I bought a set of close-up lenses for the camera on my phone.  I was amazed that he let me get within two inches of him to get some shots.  Then again, with 360-degree vision, he knows we can’t sneak up on him.

They are amazing fliers.  They can move each of their four wings independently and fly in any direction, including backwards.  They also hunt in a way that very few predators on earth  do.  They don’t chase their prey, the intercept them.  They can pick out one insect in a swarm, target it, then intercept it on its flight path.  This means they have to calculate speed, distance and course in three-dimensional space.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that these tiny insects have the brain power to process 360 degrees of vision.

The title of this article is what a friend of Kris called them.  They can eat more than a hundred mosquitos a day.  Even as larva, they eat mosquito larva.

Kris did go back during the week, earlier in the day, and saw a lot more.  I’ll go back with her during a weekend and hopefully get some new pictures.

I also learned how to make a balloon dragooonfly – the guy on the video has a Russian accent.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8DgAwWTR5U

 

Dennis Amador Cherry

12th article completed.

First Steampunk novel:  16,494 words.

Personally, my favorite insect is the praying mantis.

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