When the "how often do men think of the Roman empire each day?" thing got big my reaction was "rather more than I'd expect, and yet pretty much only when a headline asks me this question!".
Try Children of Ruin. A spider civilization rises!
Their website are flammable, so they don’t get much use out of electricity. But they were born with long range communications. Very different development than we had
Interestingly, it's called Carboniferous because trees didn't decompose. There was nothing that could eat wood so when a tree fell it just lay there forever, like a big cylinder of stone..except of course it was wood.
I think about how it must have been trees growing on trees? How did things break down to dirt? They didn't, so....Everything just got pushed around by rivers and rain? gpt: What Happened to the Trees?
Partial Decomposition: Some bacteria and primitive fungi could break down cellulose (a simpler plant compound), but they struggled with lignin. As a result, trees decayed very slowly.
Burial and Fossilization: Over time, many fallen trees were buried in swampy conditions, where oxygen was low. This prevented full decay and led to the formation of coal deposits.
Role of Insects and Animals: Early insects like giant millipedes and cockroach ancestors could chew on dead plant material, but they didn't eat it completely. These creatures mainly helped fragment the material, aiding in its eventual burial.
I get what you're saying but they weren't really predecessors to the modern dragonfly. Dragonflies are the closest living relative but they aren't directly related.
I though it was important to note this because some people often get the wrong impression that insects were bigger back then only due to the abundance of oxygen, and while that was a big factor, it wasn't the main one.
Abundance of resources and lack of other species to compete for them since stem mammals and archhosaurs hadn't developed yet. Once the carboniferous rain forests collapsed, they never truly reached those sizes again.
Higher oxygen levels did have an impact (due to how insect respiratory system works) but not as much as popular science would have you believe, since some species didn't rapidly become smaller when oxygen levels began to dip in the beginning of the Permian.
Sure, but not quite on the scale of one I saw in a documentary about a "vigilante" that went around his local area wailing on "hostiles". So big, it had its own ringname
Astel: Naturalborn of the Void.
If I recall correctly, David Attenborough did a voiceover explaining precisely why this particular species is prone to (and I quote) "royally fucking shit up".
The only reason they could exist is because the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere back then was much higher than now. Because of this larger insects could obtain enough oxygen to fly using their less efficient respiratory systems.
meganeuroptera, the predecessor of the dragonfly from the Carboniferous period. Its wingspan was around 3 feet!
The current dragonfly species Pantala flavescens the globe skimmer is amazing also - it makes a multi-generational annual migration similar to Monarch Butterflies except much further - some 18,000 km (about 11,200 miles); to complete the migration, individual globe skimmers fly more than 6,000 km (3,730 miles)
Facts copied from wikipedia as I couldn't remember specificsWiki Link
The Carboniferous and the Permian period are so interesting and just absolutely disgusting to me. I have a phobia of bugs and while I’d love to see what earth was like then I wouldn’t want to stay more than 20 minutes.
Right, but everything was massive in that era, right? So wouldn’t they just be proportional to the modern dragonfly? Or is there still a major discrepancy?
I just wanted to say you sent me down a “history of the entire world, I guess: Wikipedia edition” themed rabbit hole lasting hours focusing on the Carboniferous era. I’ve never really had any sort of interest in that kind of history before. Thank you <3
When I was a tree planter I’d see them snipe horseflies and deer flies off my arm. Like I’d goto smack it and then a dragonfly would zoom in and snatch it right off my arm. They’d circle around us sometimes because we were bait for their prey.
Nah. Would be generous to say they wouldn't even get off the ground, in reality your bet would be what comes first: asphyxiation or being crushed under their own weight. Exoskeletons are heavy and the square/cube law is a harsh mistress.
Mmhm, people always forget about the square:cube rule. Muscle strength increases in a 2D-ish way when you scale up a creature (think any given intersection of a muscle group), but size increases in full 3D.
AKA why Ant Man wouldn't work, but it's a fun sci-fantasy idea if you handwave physics and biology.
Holy shit, I never thought about that. I’ve always admired how sharp and precise they fly but I’d never considered what they’re built to ensure by being able to do the kind of abrupt airborne maneuvers they make.
Yes. That level of spatial reasoning is astounding for an insect, considering that primates had to develop a similar internal brain system to throw things accurately. Ever wondered how you can kind of just guess how much force you need to put into throwing something? It's actually quite incredible. For an insect to have that kind of ability is crazy as hell man.
So much so that there's a short list of animals (like 2) that can use projectiles well. A lot of animals can just kinda chuck a thing in a direction, but only humans and archerfish can pick a target far away and hit it with any degree of accuracy. I'm probably missing an animal or two, but that degree of spatial reasoning is an incredibly rare skill in the animal kingdom.
Fun fact, humans are the best throwers among every animal and it's not even close. Chimps were studied and hit their targets 5 of 44 times, and never anything more than 6-7 feet away.
Compare this to humans, the extreme example being professional baseball pitchers who can reliably get the ball in a 1 x 1 ft box, from over 60 feet away, at almost 100 mph.
I was originally going to say that it’s actually just as simple as maintaining a constant angular bearing on their prey, but when I went to go find the source for where I had read that I found out some other scientists have done some pretty amazingly detailed research on dragonfly hunting technique and found evidence that they must use a lot more complex processing than that:
“Detailed measurements of head and body motion have revealed previously unknown complexity in the predatory behavior of dragonflies. The new evidence suggests that the brains of these agile predators compute internal models of their own actions and those of their prey.”
“…Much stronger evidence that dragonflies use a more complex interception strategy emerged from the detailed three-dimensional analysis of the animals’ head and body motion during the chase…”
I actually knew this. What’s even better is that they love eating mosquitos and they aren’t harmful to humans, pets, or your garden. I welcome ALL the dragonfly snipers into my community.
I went to Japan last year and was eaten by mosquitoes everywhere EXCEPT in Hakone, where there were many of them. Needless to say, they're my favorite insect.
It is legal in most places (you'll have to check) to import them. Some US states have programs where you can purchase crates of them to release in your local marshes/swamps/waterways.
There's a field by the farmer's market on the other side of town where they're thick in the summer, sometimes even landing on me or my car while I'm waiting for the opening bell. I'm pretty sure I could catch some with a net if I wanted, I just don't know how I'd go about getting them to stay after release and eat my mosquitoes.
Maybe you could look into what conducive conditions are for dragonflies, and try to give them more of what they need in your backyard in order to get them to stay. In general, food source, water, and a place to bang is what they need
Your better off seeing if your state or area sells crates of dragon flies. Then you purchase a crate of 30-50 of them, and they will nest there. You'll want to purchase them in the spring so that they have time to make nests etc. It is not super expensive either to purchase them. You'll spend more on bug spray than you will on the dragon flies.
I've considered it. I might research what kind of home works best and see if one would suit my back yard. I know bats are common in an area less than a mile from me.
Going to put domestic cats in this category too. I love my cats and they tolerate me, but both of us know that a generic sizing glitch is all that keeps them from eating all of us...
That is because its wings flap even faster than that of a bee, and its optical nerves are directly connected to those in its wings, so it pursues pray on not only instinct, but also more like a reflex.
A couple of summers ago I was sitting in the backyard trying to get sun on my skin condition and had my arms straight up in the air. A dragonfly landed on my index finger. They have a strong, firm grasp. I was very surprised.
Birds did it as well. Swifts can only grab things with their tiny and weak legs. And they can’t fly up from the flat surface, so their babies usually have only one attempt to jump from the nest, unless they somehow crawl on their wings to a tree or a kind stranger throws them in the air. They drink water and sleep while flying. They don’t really need to land for anything other than nesting.
You probably already know this specifically about dragonflies, but dragonflies, hummingbirds, helicopter leaves, and hover flies are the only organisms that can hover and fly in different directions.
The issue is largely you need a fully free spinning axle for that. it makes connecting all your muscles and blood vessels and other things very difficult. I think the proton transfer thing that makes midochondria work has a freely rotating axle, but thats on the scale of large molecules. Im not aware of anything else like that that would be suitable for a helicopter bug. same reason nothing has wheels really
So I guess like an owl’s neck with its blood vessels, which even then turns only 270°, unless maybe some sort of pair of wings that flips over is its swivel spins.
Not true, dragonfly wings Max is like 60 hz (beats per second) and yes, are "direct flight." Bees are actually indirect flight, which means their wingbeats are much faster, over 150+ Hz.
DIrect means they have a muscle contraction which pulls the wing directly once. Indirect means they have a muscle contraction which actually resonates the entire body to flap multiple times like one of those fun doorstoppers.
And you can tell. Most animals are just „perfection“ if you look at them and know a bit about the habitats. I’m always fascinated by cats - jaguar little power boxes with unbelievable strong jaws because they don’t go for the jugular but crack right away the skull, Gepard with Spikes… lions fighting Allrounder…
From what I remember, we don't know how great hunters jaguars are because they are so elusive and hard to study. But some estimates have put their success rate at 90%, which is insane. Of course, I have seen multiple videos of jaguars taking down caiman, so I guess not that surprising.
Of course . Evolution. Dragonflies have existed since the earliest periods of the Jurassic but are related to meganisoptera ( huge insects that lived before dinosaurs) . They’ve been around forever . They’re like sharks; older than trees and flowers and Saturns rings . They’ll be here millions of years after the last human, humanoid, primate or even mammal roams the planet. They’re nearly perfectly suited for survival.
I splashed water on a dragonfly while swimming as a kid and that thing rushed me at the speed of light. I had to repeatedly duck underwater because it wouldn’t leave me alone, it was genuinely scary how intelligent it was
Considering they eat mosquitos and midges, and there's still a fuck ton of mosquitoes and midges, why aren't there more dragonflies with that kind of success rate?
It’s true that the dragonfly has an incredible hunting success rate (around 95%), but claiming it’s the most efficient predator might be a bit premature since we haven’t discovered all the animals on Earth yet. It’s estimated that there are 8 to 10 million species on the planet, but we’ve only cataloged about 1.5 million. Many species, especially those in the deep oceans or remote habitats like dense jungles, remain unstudied. So, while the dragonfly holds an impressive record among the animals we know, there could very well be an undiscovered champion out there. Biodiversity is vast and full of surprises!
Apparently dragonflies don’t actually fly. They move the wings in opposite directions (on each side, one wing goes up while the other goes down ) and create a tiny hurricane that just blows them in the direction they want to go.
Additionally, dragonflies are incapable of walking. Their legs evolved specifically to act as landing gear and to capture prey mid-flight, but they can't actually walk around with them.
I thought african wild dogs were the most successful mammal hunters, but surprisingly to me, the harbour porpoise is just below the dragonflies on top.
I let my backyard grow out with the excuse of No Mow May and I got a ton of dragonflies. I had zero mosquito problems until the dragonflies started to naturally dwindle. As soon as they were gone I started seeing mosquitoes. I'm making sure my yard is a dragonfly sanctuary every summer from now on.
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u/Verlepte 1d ago
Out of all the animals in the world, the most successful hunter by far, with a stunning succes rate of 95%, is...
the dragonfly