starisea

mmmmm...chinese food. sounds like you had a lovely supper. hope you're having a lovely sunday

Dragonflies, huh? That is way kewl. I think they are neat for several reasons: 1) Evolutionarily speaking, their body design is very ancient. They have not particularly needed to evolve much for hundreds of millions of years. 2) They usually mate while in flight--the male transfers sperm to a special receptacle typically located on the second abdominal segment and clasps a female behind the head with small appendages on the tail--this often heart-shaped configuration is known as a "mating wheel". 3) Their teeth are among the stoutest in the class Insecta, which led taxonomists to name their orderOdonata in reference to the Greek word "odon", meaning "tooth". 4) Their spiny legs angle to form a sort of basket-shaped thing with the opening pointing forward in flight. With their powerful wings they can easily overtake most other insects, scooping them up and simply bending their necks a bit to munch on their hapless victim; this entirely aerial feeding behavior is rather unique.
There are other things but those are the most salient in my mind now.
Please pardon my lecturing. I love insects.
And I don't know why some of my posts like this one end up being really tall and skinny--sorry about that.

[Edited on Dec 14, 2003 7:05PM]