This dragonfly is known as a 12 Spotted Skimmer. I found it at a nature park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The dragonfly is a very interesting insect. Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet. There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies, all of which (along with damselflies) belong to the order Odonata, which means "toothed one" in Greek and refers to the dragonfly's serrated teeth.
Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter, and even mate mid-air. If they can't fly, they'll starve, because they only eat prey they catch while flying. Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day. Several years of their life are spent as a nymph living in freshwater; the adults may be on the wing for just a few days or weeks. They are fast agile fliers, sometimes migrating across oceans, and are often but not always found near water due to the fact that their larvae exist entirely in water. Their presence indicates a clean and healthy water zone. There are old and unreliable claims that dragonflies can fly at up to 60 - 65 miles per hour. That is amazing. There are many myths about Daragonflies. Source: The Smithsonian and Wikipedia.

This poem is structured in Sextets (6 line stanzas). It has a rhyme scheme of aabccb, and a meter of 8-8-10-8-8-10.

This photograph was taken by the author himself on June 21, 2012.

You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.