I took this close-up pic of a Dragonfly at the Silver Mine Resevoir in Cape Town – was tough getting close to the bugger!
Dragonfly facts (if you’re interested):
- Dragonfly eyes contain up to 30,000 individual lenses. Human eyes only have one.
- They have two sets of wings. They don’t have to beat their wings in unison like other insects do. Their front wings can be going up while their backs ones are going down.
- They only flap their wings at about 30 beats per second (bps) compared to a bee’s 300 bps.
- After leaving the water and becoming flying insects, they only live for about a month.
- Among the many names for dragonflies around the world are Old Glassy from China, Water Dipper from England and Big Needle of Wings from the ancient Celts.
