Today when we were just about ready to call it a day this Southern Giant Darner Dragonfly alighted my neighbor's leg and was inclined to stay there for a bit of a rest. She's not one for bugs so I saved this one from the wrath of a tissue and convinced him to alight to my finger and then eventually onto our Hibiscus bush. Then I came inside and went digging for what in the world was this huge dragonfly, which was clearly bigger than my hand. So here's what I can tell you. Southern Giant Darner Dragonflies can be as large as 5" from wingtip tip to wing tip and this one was bigger than my hand! They fly fast, nearly 60 miles an hour so it is very difficult to capture a picture of them, but it is very windy here today and this one clearly needed a rest. When I went back outside, after reading how hard they are to photograph, I went back to the exact spot and sure enough he was still there. Quite a bit better off for the rest too, because he took off across the street as soon as I came around the corner of my house. Good thing for a zoom or else I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to get close enough. Ironic as I couldn't get him off my hand to unload the car not to long before!
I nearly forgot to add these Darner Dragonflies are called thus because of their resemblance to a darning needle. I don't see it do you?
4 comments:
Things like that give me the shivers, but the colour is amazing.
I love drangonflies and this one has an amazing colour. There are other bugs though that do creep me out but I won't mention them here.
I love those guys. They do seem to have the desire to land on people which can be dangerous for them. I've had them on me, but the weirdest was on my forehead. He hung out for a while until I finally moved him.
Whwn I worked for the state dept of env. reg BEFORE THE DEP the biologists captured these and counted Larva as a health indicator for waterways and grass lands.
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