Odonata

This order consists of the famous dragonflies and damselflies. There are more than 5,000 recorded species in the world and 450 in North America. According to the fossil record, they’ve been around for at least 300 million years. In this time, they have lost the ability to fold their wings flat on their body. Damselflies fold their wings behind them and dragonflies hold them to the side.

Odonatids are specialized into highly maneuverable aerial predators. For one, they are one the largest predators on mosquitoes. Their young, however, are a completely different issue. They are called naiads and are aquatic predators. They capture small tadpoles, insects, and even small fish (and will sometimes bite the hand of humans pulling in the weeds (I know)).

On our trip we managed to capture a few species of damselflies and dragonflies including …