Talk:Dragonfly

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Good articleDragonfly has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 15, 2015Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 24, 2015.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the first scientific descriptions of several species of dragonfly were published by the watercolourist Moses Harris (one of his illustrations pictured)?

General description[edit]

Should the first picture in this section really be of a damselfly? I feel like this may lead to confusion, even if the purpose of the image is to point out the differences. Would it make sense to replace this picture with, say, a picture comparing a damselfly with a dragonfly, instead of a picture of a damselfly by itself? BearGlyph (talk) 21:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's good of you to take the time to consider the article, thank you. Your suggestion is feasible and articles do occasionally do that kind of thing. However, there are many reasons for thinking that the image is appropriate and well positioned. Firstly, readers will already have encountered the four earlier pictures of dragonflies in various states. The damselfly is clearly captioned, is a close relative, and the adjacent text makes the distinction, as does the caption itself. The adjacent text benefits from being illustrated in this way, and indeed would be less easy to visualise without an illustration. More dragonflies, including an illustration of their anatomy next to the description of dragonfly anatomy, immediately follow. I hope I may be allowed to suggest as gently as possible that, since in fact you were not personally confused, we have so far a total of zero persons who actually found it difficult. We know that many readers consult only the lead, or indeed only the first sentence or two; they see an image of a dragonfly up there, so they don't risk any confusion. By the time they get down here, they have already seen several dragonflies and seven pairs of wings outspread at rest. Perhaps we shouldn't be too concerned. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The terms 'nymph' and 'naiad' are mostly in North American and casual usage (e.g. your 'oders'!). Tillyard (1917) and Corbet (1962, 1980, 1999) press for use of the general term 'larva', and this usage is followed by most Odonata biologists. The picture of the larva feeding on a tadpole is of a dytiscid (water beetle). Check the coxa, single-segmented tarsi, shape of legs, body, and the terminal appendages. There are lots of photos about of aeshnid larvae feeding on tadpoles and fish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.211.75.176 (talk) 12:11, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I have removed the image. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:25, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology of Latin libellula[edit]

A discussion about the etymology of Latin libellula is archived at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 June 12#Etymology of Latin libellula.—Wavelength (talk) 19:38, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Checked as ok, but the source is narrow as an excerpt from a book by the director of a group of Minnesota enthusiasts. --Zefr (talk) 18:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Male insects do not have a penis[edit]

Nice primer on these aerial master critters, but I’ve noticed something about male reproductive anatomy as presented in the "general description" section, paragraph 4. This states that the male has a penis and clasper on its second abdominal segment, in apparent contradiction to the anatomy diagram, which shows the clasper on the tenth and last segment. No penis is indicated, nor do I think insects have penises. According to North Carolina State U. entomologists, the organ male insects use to deposit sperm is called an aedeagus. My guess is that it would also be on the tenth segment, near the clasper. A probable flaw in the article which deserves a look-see.

NC State U., male reproductive system https://genent.cals.ncsu.edu/bug-bytes/reproductive-system/male-reproductive-system/ . Jessegalebaker (talk) 01:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, there is indeed some error. There is no penis or clasper on the second abdominal segment. Shyamal (talk) 13:44, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Dragonfly reproductive anatomy is much different from other insects. It was already in the reference used, Needham, J.G. (1975). A Manual of the Dragonflies of North America, page 20-21. Added more references. Jee 04:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Dragonfly," listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Dragonfly,. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 14#Dragonfly, until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 20:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Size? Weight?[edit]

It seems strange that this article says absolutely nothing about how big dragonflies are, except for the precise size of an extinct distant relative. I'm kind of curious about the ones that eat frogs. 2601:C6:4100:F980:EC69:B969:D1CE:CBE8 (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Water Mites[edit]

Strange Thing Happened The Other Day; A Dragonfly Flew Up To Me And Tacitly Asked Me To Remove Two Orange Mites, One From Off It's Leg And The Other From Under It's Wing. I Found A Small Twig, Then It Crawled Up On My Hand And Let Me Remove The Mites. Is That Odd? VerifyTruth927 (talk) 16:35, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In My Opinion, Dragonflies Are More Intelligent Than People Often Assume. VerifyTruth927 (talk) 18:42, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is this correct?[edit]

The article claims the internal gills in the nymphs are "located around the fourth and fifth abdominal segments". I have not found this information anywhere else on the net (or anything else about where they are located). The illustration used in the book that's quoted does not seem to support it. Rhynchosaur (talk) 05:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Something about Winged “Bugs” Including Dragonflies[edit]

I thought winged insects were supposed to only have one pair of wings and that dragonflies were therefore another type of invertebrate out of having two pairs of wings. Cbsteffen (talk) 15:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cbsteffen, I'm not sure where you read/heard this information, but it's not correct. Many insects have two pairs of wings: bees, dragonflies, butterflies and moths, etc. etc. MeegsC (talk) 16:07, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Microsoft Rewards seemed to say that. I must have misread something about the classification of dragonflies. Cbsteffen (talk) 05:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In fact all the winged insect have two pairs of wings, one pair reduced secondarily (into halteres) in the flies and the strepsiptera. Shyamal (talk) 03:34, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Featured picture scheduled for POTD[edit]

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Dragonfly

The dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera of the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Adult dragonflies are characterized by a pair of large, multifaceted, compound eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. Many dragonflies have brilliant iridescent or metallic colours produced by structural coloration, making them conspicuous in flight. An adult dragonfly's compound eyes have nearly 24,000 ommatidia each. Dragonflies are predatory insects, both in their aquatic nymphal stage (also known as "naiads") and as adults. In some species, the nymphal stage lasts up to five years, and the adult stage may be as long as 10 weeks, but most species have an adult lifespan in the order of five weeks or less, and some survive for only a few days. Loss of wetland habitat threatens dragonfly populations around the world. This male Onychogomphus forcipatus dragonfly was photographed in Kresna Gorge, Bulgaria.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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