"Dragonfly's jump ..."

Dragonflies are one of the most ancient insects: their ancestors appeared on our planet about 350 million years ago, and dragonfly did not change in the multimillion -year -old history. But, without even acquiring significant improvements during evolution, the dragonfly is an amazing insect, an almost perfect predator. It is believed that precisely the dragonflies became the first animals to master the airspace.

A harmonious elongated body, a wide chest, gnawing at the oral apparatus, large wings and well -developed vision, they talk a lot about the dragonfly and its lifestyle. Dragonfly is a predator, and very fast and dexterous. She catches small insects with jagged jaws right on the fly, and large - paws.

The victims of dragonflies are most often insects, such as flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects, up to smaller dragonflies.

Dragonflies have long legs directed forward; The front are shorter than the rear, which facilitates the capture and retention of prey.

The harmonious body of a dragonfly serves as a balancer. Males at the end of the abdomen have peculiar forceps that help hold the female by the neck during mating.

Dragonflies are beautiful flyers. They freeze in the air, then sharply soar up. In a throw, they are able to develop speeds up to 100 km/h. Dragonflies can fly without rest for several hours. The speed and duration of the flight is provided by four wings, and each steam acts independently, but at the same time surprisingly harmoniously. Dragonflies can easily make multi -kilometer flights. During the flight, they produce wings of 100-150 waves per second. With the onset of the evening, the dragonfly sits on a plant and rests until the next morning.

When looking at the dragonfly, the first thing that attracts attention is the eyes. Like many insects, the eyes of the dragonflies are faceted. Each consists of 30 thousand separate faces. Each facet works on its own and is isolated from the rest of the pigment cells, and only the lower ones are able to distinguish between colors, and the upper ones are exclusively shape. With the help of the upper faces, the dragonfly distinguishes only black and white tones, therefore, noticing the insect in front of him, he tries not to lose it against the bright background of the sky. But when the dragonfly rises above the victim, preparing for an attack, she needs to see the insect well against the background of the Earth. And here we need the lower faces with which it distinguishes colors.

Thanks to such unusual properties of the eyes and their structure, dragonflies see much better than many other insects. They notice prey at a distance of several meters. Their eyes simultaneously see everything that happens ahead, from behind and on the sides. Insects see shadows and feel any movement around themselves, including human movement. Although the dragonflies are motionless, their head is constantly in motion - with their huge facet eyes, these predators are constantly looking for flies, mosquitoes, blind and other prey.

Different types of dragonflies differ from each other with small structural features, sizes and coloring, and some even have wings are painted. In the color of the dragonflies, green, blue, yellow, brown shades prevail. Wings are with spots of various colors. Usually females are paler than males.

About 60 were noted in the Moscow region, and in the world - over 4,500 types of dragonflies. In the suburbs, the first dragonflies appear in late May. As a rule, these are small species (arrows), and large - real dragonflies - begin to fly in the summer.

Dragonflies mate on the fly. The secondary copulative apparatus of males is highly specialized and has no analogues among insects - it is located at the very base of the abdomen, where the seed fluid is transferred from the usual sexual opening at the top (end) of the abdomen. Putting dragonflies is a very complicated process. After the male’s courtship ritual behind the female, the dragonfly clutch in the so -called copulation pair in which the male holds the female with the help of his legs, and then with the help of specially adapted tick -shaped anal appendages of the abdomen.

The males of some types of dragonflies hold the female by the head, in other species - by the front -line, all this happens in flight, and the male flies ahead. The female bends the abdomen forward, to the male's male co -feeding apparatus, forming a “marriage ring”. Dragonflies-shooters fly together for a long time, and the female periodically sits down, and the male occupies a position perpendicular to her and holds balance with the help of wings. Sometimes the male is sitting down, and the female hangs, clinging to his abdomen. Mating, depending on the type of dragonfly, can last from a few seconds to several hours.

Dragonflies lay eggs in the water or water of aquatic plants, less often in wet soil. Some females lay eggs, still being in a coupling with a male, in other dragonflies, the male flies at this time over the female, in the third case the male simply flies away on his own business, and the female lays eggs on his own.

The transformation of the dragonflies is incomplete. Highless wingless nymphs of dragonflies are called najes and develop in water. Nymphs of dragonflies are also predators, feed on the larvae of water insects, sometimes attack tadpoles and fry of fish; In turn, they serve food for fish. At the end of the development, nymphs crawl into near -water plants or on the soil near the reservoir, where the last molting passes, as a result of which an adult winged dragonfly is born.

We express the recognition of Oleg Kosterin and Alexei Kupriyanov for help in preparing an article .