What Makes Dragonflies So Extraordinary
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ย. 2023
- Before bats, before birds, before pterosaurs, a dragonfly-like insect was probably the first thing to fly on Earth. They also happen to be our host Jessica Ware’s all-time favorite insect, both because they’re impressive predators and evolutionary innovators.
Join host and entomologist Jessica Ware to find out why dragonflies are the strongest flyers in the insect world-reaching speeds of up to 30 mph and among the few animals that can hover. Then, follow scientists into the field to discover what mapping the dragonfly family tree is revealing about incredible insects. The series is produced for PBS by the American Museum of Natural History.
Original Production Funding Provided by National Science Foundation - Grant No. 2120006
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Take the 2023 PBS Survey: to.pbs.org/pbssurvey2023t
*****
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: to.pbs.org/DonateTerra
*****
Subscribe to PBS Terra so you never miss an episode! bit.ly/3mOfd77
And keep up with Insectarium and PBS Terra on:
Facebook: / pbsdigitalstudios
Instagram: / pbsds
TikTok: / pbsdigitalstudios
I have a little artificial dragonfly that I pin to my hat, and it seems to keep the mosquitoes and deerflies away.
Great idea that I'm definitely going to try out!!
@@Hello_Fuckers0 I got mine on Ebay
What?! No way
When I swim in the ocean I put a little shark repellent on, and it seems to work.
May I interest you in my anti-tiger rock?
My yard suffers from mosquitoes from April through June. Then, for some reason, a host of dragonflies descends and the annual Great Mosquito Massacre occurs. Love me some dragonflies!
Guhl me too
That footage of the frog jumping and missing because the dragonfly quickly took off was amazing.
lol I had to go back and rewatch it like 5 times. Amazing, yes. But I ain't gonna lie. Mostly for the lulz. 😅
And hysterical!
8:45
30 MPH is flat out amazing for such a small animal. Dr Ware's nerdish enthusiasm is cool.
Not only are they good flyers, dragonflies are intelligent too. Now they won't be winning any maths contests and they're not interested in solving puzzles, but they really do make the best possible use of their tiny brains and huge eyes. They have fantastic 3D spatial awareness and can accurately estimate speeds and trajectories of all things around them. They don't just chase after prey, they intercept them in flight.
When I lived in the FL everglades and would ride my bike at almost dusk I would be surrounded by dragonflies hunting for the mosquitoes I was attracting -- it was somewhat magical, I thought of it as (not swimming with the dolphins but) riding with the dragonflies 🌴
That is poetic. I love a good dragonfly shield...especially as a Floridian.
Lol
Years ago,a friend and I were canoeing in the Everglades. One night out on a chickee in the middle of nowhere we were getting dangerously eaten alive by mosquitoes ,it was real bad !! Then out of nowhere dragonfly's showed up ,we got up and jumped for joy ! As they flew around us ,it was Amazing . I love the dragonfly ❤
That's pretty cool,
That sounds so nice.
She is delightful! I already love dragon flies but she made this an A+ production, she's so entertaining and knowledgeable, warm and funny, all at the same time. Great Job!
Totally agree! 👍🏼
She is.
LOVE dragonflies! Lots of them in NH around my little lake. Once studied and photographed a nymph on my railing for the 4 hour hatching process. It was so fascinating, like nothing else!
Thanks for this great video! 10:47
@@user-oo4ww1hf1c That is so cool! You have to have real patience to get to know these wily guys.
When I was a kid I used to lay in a field, perfectly still, for as long as it took for them to land on me. Magical.
Dr Ware is a fantastic communicator
I love when a scientist can switch between common and scientific language.
Dr. Ware is fantastic.
A brilliant presentation!
BTW just think of the deep time involved in the evolution of dragonflies here, 400 Million years, that’s 400,000 years and multiply that by 1000!
Just a human lifetime of 80 years seems long and our minds can’t really fully appreciate these kinds of time scales!
I have a nerd crush on her ♥️
"New School" evolutionary biologist and entomologist: Jessica Lee Ware, PhD
I just have a memory of my dad pulling the bark off a tree in our yard when I was like 4. He called me out there specifically to see this. It was a big piece of bark. When he did, out flew tons of Dragonflies. I was both horrified and it was like magic. Couldn't process what should be my reaction. I decided that since they didn't harm me, they were the most beautiful and noble with head movements like a horse when you talk to one on a clothes line. It's like they listen and nod and tilt their head like they understand. Also, hummingbirds. My two favorite yard guests of honor.
We love all insects, but we're pretty partial to Team Odonata. Time machine goal: seeing Meganeura in flight!
Even at the end of their life cycle, dragonflies are beneficial to the health of the ecosystem. While kayaking along the shore of the Great Slave Lake in Canada, I saw dragonflies in the thousands after they had reproduced at the end of their life cycle die and fall into the water. Several hundred ducks were paddling around eating them as they settled on the water. I imagine this is an important source of food for ducks in the fall before they start their long migration south.
They're so fascinating! Our camera crew spent a whole summer in a lake, observing their behaviour and getting some astonishing close-ups; the footage is so amazing!
I love listening to scientists like this who are knowledgeable, passionate, and thoughtful. They usually have an optimistic view of the world and want to use their specific field of study to help the world at large.
Ayumu Sasaki, grand prix motorcycle racer, has always featured dragonflies in the designs on his helmets. The artwork has varied, classical or stylised, the depictions of dragonflies on samurai helmets made me smile and think of this very talented young rider. I always thought the inspiration was the maneuverability of a racing motorcycle, but maybe it is in homage to those helmets of his ancestors.
This video is so cool, it gives great information on dragonflies and damselflies in terms of their natural history and entomology I have never realized or discovered before. I didn’t know about fliers and perchers and I also didn’t know that while dragonflies are know to eat mosquitoes that carry Malaria and Yellow Fever to stop humans from being infected by them when they feed, I never heard of Dengue, another disease carried by mosquitoes before. I need to do more research on it. Don’t you agree?
I read recently that, for the samurais, the dragonfly was a symbol of strength, agility and victory in battle. Don't know if it's true, but at least it makes perfect sense to me 🙂
I had no idea dragonflies were so good at flying! This video really helped me form a deeper appreciation for dragonflies :)
Yea knowing they eat flies and mosquitos i tell my kids not to hurt dragon flies. 😂
"Just smaller than a Crow" holy shit! Insect that large is incredible. Give those insects their due! They're incredible even today.
They breathe through osmosis. The higher levels of oxygen in the past allowed for larger dragonflies.
Remember that their prey would have been correspondingly larger, too. Flies the size of robins and I don't even want to think about the mosquito size!
With special audio guest, my favorite insect: CICADAS
I have revived Dragon flies that were incapsulated in ice. The first time, I found one Griff Creek, North Lake Tahoe, I had a hunch, removed it from the ice and water, warmed it up and sure enough it flew away. the next time it was late fall, it had rained, filled an empty bowl with rain water and one got trapped and over night the water froze. So when I found him in the morning I removed the sheet of ice his wings were inside of and set it in the sun. You have to be carful, it's a slow process. It helps to blow your breath on them, that seems to really do the trick. Eventually he started to wiggle and move around, then took off. I have some photos and video if anyone is interested.
Great story, make a vid with your photos? 😊
a friend who passed away in 2021 at a far too young of an age held that dragonflies were part of the afterlife, loved ones returning to check on us, the first time that another friend and I were able to meet after her death a dragonfly laned on me as we sat at the outside table. Our family and friends all see dragonflies as Steff coming by to see us.
I was told years ago that if a dragonfly would land on you it would bring you good luck.
Has it been proven to be true, though?
I think so. They have always brought me good luck.
@@jamieponiatowski7909 great to hear
Even if they don't bring future good luck, I felt extremely lucky, even privileged, when one landed perfectly in the center of my sternum, with it's wings outstretched, head facing up, and remained there for about eight seconds before flying off.
@@varonadee6980 that's so cool
So well executed. great writers behind this.
Dragonflies are truly amazing insects and love having them around the yard when the mosquitos are prevalent. I wasn't aware that the Dragonflies lineage was one of the oldest until I recently watched the Netflix series 'Life on our Planet' narrated by Morgan Freeman. Now I am also aware of the different styles of Dragonflies wings. Many thanks.
I love these guys! They started showing up after I made a pond from an above ground pool. They are excellent hunters of pests like Mosquitoes and Flies. They have a larval stage that needs water which is why they showed up in the pond.
The swimming larval version lives for 3 years and the flying form 3 months
In my ignorant outlook, 3 months isn’t very long. 😢
In our 10sqm pond there are 4 different species which appear at different moments along the summer. Some of them were still flying in late november last year
Dragonflies are one of the few insects I like! I'm glad to see they get their own video.
I remember when I was a young child playing in the sandbox, which was in a fenced-in corner of the property beside the garage a Dragonfly hovered over the only way in or out for a good half hour, not sure what it was doing but I was terrified and will never forget that day XD
I love to photograph them with my macro lens.
Year after year there are less dragonflies and damselflies as are other insects.
Yes. More videos about insects. Drangon flies are my body guards✨
The OG fliers, literally
Pterygota, or mayflies, is order of flyers from the Silurian and Devonian has some older fossils than of meganeurids, apparently, up to am estimated 440 million years ago, that is more than a hundred million years earlier! (I was also surprised, thought the same as you).
But still, that is one "that we know of".
Insects, especially with softer and lighter exoskeletons sadly do not fossilize very well. So it is very scarce, especially that far back. From most we even only have fragments of wings.
But it also seems more likely that flight would probably have started with a much smaller insect rather than the more massive and specialized Odonata.
Also, they would require their niche (hunting other flying insects) to exist before being able to evolve into that niche of course.
It's hilarious they talk about their evolution when they appeared in a geological instant with all their biological structures clearly no evolution producing anything about them. It's amazing how tax dollars is paying to push a pseudo science naturalist atheistic narrative in the year 2023 that goes against the science, logic and reason that an educational channel should be based on.
The term you used, Pterygota, refers to the winged insects. Within the Pterygota is the order Ephemeroptera, or the mayflies. They form a natural group, or clade, with the Odonata, or dragonflies & damselflies; this sister group relationship is called the Palaeoptera and it is sometimes recovered as sister to the rest of the Neoptera, or remaining winged insects. Other phylogenies recover Odonata as sister to the rest of the winged insects, with Ephemeroptera sister to the Neoptera. Regardless of the hypothesis (Palaeoptera, Metapterygota or Chiastomyaria), the reason we think the first to fly were insects that looked something like a dragonfly is because in our tree of life of insects they are recovered at the base of tree. Yes, probably the first flying odonates may not have been as large as Meganeura to begin with (in that weird time between basal hexapods and when flight evolved it was likely something smaller) but it probably looked a lot like a dragonfly, a mayfly, or their common ancestor, should Palaeoptera be the correct hypothesis. There are older non-winged fossils of basal hexapods that are very old, but these probably resembled something like a silverfish or firebrat and they could not fly. - Jessica, entomologist & Insectarium host
@@pbsterra Why you ignoring my comment and hiding it? You push pseudo science then are pathetic enough to hide people who point it out. That is unreal for a publicly funded channel to silence free speech and push pseudo science pbs. You should be ashamed of yourself.
@@pbsterra still waiting pbs why are you so pathetic?
Holy crap. I knew dragonflies were cool ever since I was a kid. I didn't realize they were THIS C O O L !
Thank you for this topic!
Please more on other insect topics. 🎉
8:46 That shot with the frog trying to eat the dragonfly was incredible
When my oldest daughter was younger, I told her a story I had heard as a child. Dragonflies turn into Fairies at night, and that during the day you could talk to them and they would remember you and seek you out at night as a Fairy 🧚♀️ . She would enjoy hours of talking to her dragonflies by the water sitting on hugh rocks in the sun. It was magical.
With my Grand daughter I took it a step furthur, and together we built a beautiful Fairy garden underneath an old tree in my front yard, complete with Fairy houses, benches, and a tiny doghouse complete with a tiny dog. He magically comes to life at night with the Fairies, of course.
Needless to say, we all love dragonflies. ❤
Always been one of my favourite creatures. A flawless predator with super abilities. We occasionally get massive swarms of them in Adelaide where I live. Never realised they actually did swarm until the first time I saw it. Amazing.
I used to have swarms at my old house. Brown and blue dragonflies. Happened every year.
Dragon fly lore. My ‘fishing with a dragon fly’ experience. They are my favorite insects, beauty, design, agility and dare say intelligence? I fished a pond in Northern California consistently for many years. Teeming with flora, aquatic life and dragon flies, I came to observe, admire and become fascinated with these amazing creatures. I would fish from a very small, one man raft, nearly at water level, sitting down. I used an artificial lure, which requires successive, multiple casts and retrievals. After several casts and returns, I noticed a dragon fly following ( flying after) my cast lure to the point it hit the water, and then hovering there. Thinking this was a fluke, I repeated the cast, retrieval sequence several more times, it really was happening. Whats more the dragon fly would follow my lure’s retrieval back to me (the raft) and then, this is even more amazing, it would position (hover) itself above and behind me, at rod level, as I raised and drew back the rod to cast again. It seemed as if it was waiting for me to cast again, so we could start the whole cast, follow, retrieve, cast sequence again. I tested this occurrence more than a dozen times and each time it was the same. I was left with this over whelming wonderful feeling that I had somehow connected with? communicated with? nature, an insect no less, and we were actually playing a game together of cross species ‘go fetch’.
Great little story raff
Indigenous people in the south west U.S. believe dragonflies are connected to water and are sacred.
They are often depicted in the art- as a way of requesting more water.
Most excellent presentation.
Interesting, very informative, educational.
I absolutely love dragonflies 💞 Thank you for this episode
These two are awesome. @pbsterra, the video description deserves to have Rhema Uche-Dike's name in it with Dr Ware's
When I was younger in areas of Florida we called them "Mosquito Hawks" and everyone understood to respect them. Somewhere over time after many people started moving to Florida the "Dragonfly" name replaced "Mosquito Hawk" and people became terrified of them. Now pretty much everyone has no clue what they are and are told they will be attacked or bitten by them, so people actively seek to kill them. I wish we could go back to calling them "Mosquito Hawks" if for no other reason than to protect these beautiful creatures.
We called them mosquito hawks as well
I like lamp.
Good video! As someone who identifies macroinvertebrates, it's nice to put a face to one of the people responsible for our ever improving taxonomy, even if splitting Gomphus into a bunch of genera was a big pain in the butt for me.
There is something so beautifully comforting about seeing black folk be so happily engaged in nature in this way, they were beyond informational & engaging & I loved it 🪰💓🪰
Racist
@@jamesarnette1394 yeah what the heck? My thoughts exactly
Odonata are also my favorites. This is a delightful video!!!
I love dragonfly since I was a kid I thought of them as mini helicopter ❤
Dragonflies made growing up in the Louisiana wetlands manageable. Used to sit on the porch and watch the winged dragons snatch horseflies and mosquitos we attracted out of the air.
Dragonflies are my favorite insects, too! I love that they're fierce and delicate at the same time, and their colors and wing patterns and flight fascinate me. I'm still learning to identify them (and I'll admit, the sexual dimorphism throws me sometimes.) There's a pond in the Adirondacks that I visit periodically during the summer where I can sit and watch them for hours. Depending on when I visit, I'll see entirely different sets of species.
They're fearless, too-- they'll let me get *incredibly* close (within a couple of inches) to photograph them, sometimes even taking off and landing again immediately in the same spot at a more advantageous angle, as if they're posing for their close-up.
My grandmother (who was from southern Germany) always used to say that it was good luck to have a dragonfly light on you.
I am so jealous of that dragonfly pin.
Incredible video, content and presentation just top notch.
Yesssssssssssssssss Dragonflies are so so so awesome
I've always loved them. Magical creatures!
As much as I love Dragonflies, I have to thank you for introducing me to Red-winged Blackbirds @8:25 Love birds, too.
Last summer I was eating lunch in my truck facing a small wet grassy ditch between the parking lot and the road. One dragonfly would fly low down the center of the ditch and scare up mosquitos while the others waited at the sides. When the mosquitos would fly up the others would swoop in and eat them. Then the process would repeat. It was so cool and obvious what they were doing.
Dragonflies are a good omen. They ward off minor annoyances to help you focus on your quest.
I love watching dragonfly aerobatics.
My Nigerian brothers doing SCIENCE!. much love from Home
I love her enthusiasm for a creature many people aren't even aware of.
dragonflies are just so cool. Definitely my fav flying insect! I can stare at them for hours. what a fun video! i learned so much!
they are by far the most adaptable predators known
This documentary was a treat in every way. The chemistry between the two scientists was amazing.
Sounds like dragonflies can be put in the same club as sharks and crocodiles; been around forever and highly successful.
When i was a child, the term for a "dragonfly" here in the South, was "mosquito hawk". I rarely hear that term used in this day and age.
Evinrude was my favorite Disney character when I was a kid. Excellent program on the best insect ever!
I have LOVED dragonflies since I was a toddler visiting my grandfather by the lake. I had never seen such a wonderous creature! It reminded me of a biplane.
One of the ancient names for Japan was Akitsushima, meaning Dragonfly Island. This is one of the first recorded names for the region, mentioned in the Kojiki.
Where I'm working in Vietnam the local lore is that if the dragonflies are flying low to the ground it will rain soon.
same with birds... birds flying near the ground can warn of tornados.
Fun fact: If you are the chill type you can hold up a finger and get a dragonfly with enough trust to perch on it. And they will just gladly hang out there. :3
Thanks for including views of our Tiffany "Dragfonly" Lamps at the end of this fascinating episode. While we are expert about Tiffany's lamps, we didn't know much about the dragonfly and we learned a lot. What extraordinary insects! Thank you for sharing your knowledge in a way that is entertaining and accessible.
I live in a suburb of Kansas City, in a 3rd-floor apartment. Was happily surprised to see, one day, multiple dragonflies had flown past my balcony. I didn't notice until later - had been taking photos of thunderstorm clouds. Looking at the pics, there were a few dragonflies, flying past! I had no idea they ever flew so high above ground level.
Love me some excellent Dragonfly content, very well done ya'll
Funny that she mentioned that story of a dragonfly chasing away something near her. I had a red wasp trying to attack me the other day as i was sitting down (i'm very allergic to them), and i had a dragonfly come chase it away multiple times, and then would come land on the table each time right in front of me and facing me as if it was saying "i got you bro, no worries", lol.
As a child I imagined dragon flys as large as birds. I was hysterical when one chased me- when kids are little- little things look ginormous.
Love seeing them fly in the summer.
I like dragonflies because unlike other bugs they will avoid you in flight. I don’t like creepy things landing on me. Once, across the street, I saw a swarm of dragonflies, probably a hundred, forming a spherical cloud in the air. As a test, my daughter and I crossed the street an stood in the middle of the cloud. The dragonflies continued to circle around us, but not a one ever touched us. It was weird and spooky having so may buzzing around us.
You have to love an insect thats eats mosquitoes, deer flies & horse, & their hunting techniques are fascinating, all while looking pretty. Their emergence from a fierce looking aquatic stage to a beautiful flier is slow, but worthwhile if you make the time to watch.
The highest tech flying machine ever - and it is the first to appear on the scene. Wow - Random mutations are genius.
I've always loved dragon flies since I was a child.
And I always imagined how they must have evolved since dinosaurs times. But now I know they are even older.😮
Thank you for the knowledge and your work.
Love love love them !!! One time a dragonfly positioned itself in front of my bike while I was riding!!! Very colorful and gorgeous… then took of … and came back again in the SA,Poe position fir few more seconds.. I was Mesmerized!!! It has been my animal spirit even before that ❤️❤️❤️😊
Love it! I want to bug out and I’m stoked on dragonflies ❤❤❤ great video. And vibes❤
Thanks for educating me on dragonflies I had no idea how special they are
I was kayaking once, and this female dragonfly got down into my boat where she tried to oviposit in my bare leg numerous times. Interesting feeling.
The Ornithopters of DUNE were designed with the individual Dragon fly wings maneuverability in mind.
Dragonflies are totally boss.
I love dragonflies! This made me happy.
A few years ago, I was looking for a book to learn more about dragonflies.Unfortunatey, I was unable to find one.
I love, love, LOVE dragonflies!!!! They are my favorite insect of all time. In the 2000s and the 2010s, I took many pictures of dragonflies in my backyard. They are gorgeous creatures and beneficial to the environment.
By the way, their "nymph" stage begins underwater. They spend most of their lives as underwater hunters before they eventually emerge to the surface and transform into flying creatures.
@@bluedasher74 "hmm, the water is less dense up here, I wonder..."
This makes me feel special seeing as a kid I caught one in my backyard with a fish net. I don't think it was very happy about it though.
I remember seeing the tall reeds and grasses in the Everglades and it appeared that everyone had a dragonfly resting on top and once witnessed a massive cloud of them the sound was amazing
Her natural appreciation at such a young age is very cool
Once, while free-treading water in the vast deep end of a pool,,,I saw several dragonflies scampering around the vortex of mosquito larvae and CO2 that converged ... and a mating pair appeared at my 3rd eye.. a revelation in a magnetic synergy...Serendipity as magnetim=conscious gift ...
Thanks for your work.
Love the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History! Got to visit DC at the end of October with my daughter and her boyfriend.
My first exposure to dragon flies was fishing at a lake as well. I was a bit taken aback by their size and the buzzing noise they made. Saw a mating pair moving together perfectly synchronized. Their shiny teal bodies were beautiful.
Every year I can hardly wait for my little pond, to give me another crop of dragon flies. Once they're here, all the mosquitos are gone. Gotta love the dragon fly.
Dragonfly's seem almost friendly or intelligent. I wonder what communication could be like.
I loved watching them hunt mosquitoes from my second story balcony, as they were always about that height. Fascinating creatures.
Omg I love this presenter I could learn all day
Simply the best. Better than all the rest. ✨
They're dragons, and they're flies!
I've mostly seen "perchers" on land, but then on this pond behind where I used to live, I saw them fly or hover. But I thought they were both the same insect. Thanks for this cool info!
I heard that in the Indigenous Americans dragonflies were a symbol of hope. Dragonflies need water to breed, so if you saw a dragonfly it meant there was a water source nearby
The nymph stage is interesting also.
In the summer of 2023 I was living just West of Beloit, Wi and happened to look toward the wild portion of our yard [ about 2 acres] and saw at least 3 or 400 dragon flies. We are at least 1 mile away from any water but the swarm was there for about 15 minutes and then continued their journey to wherever.
Thank you for luring me into your fantastic presentation called 'libelles' in my native language. You both impress me with your passion.
Lore: in sweden they are known as "trollslända" wich means spindle of the troll or magical spindle, the body of the dragonfly look a bit like a spindle. The spindle was a strictly female tool and female trolls where considered the most dangerous ones, possessing evil magic assosiated with wilderness, human witches are connected to them. The spindle was sometimes used for telling the future and things like that. The dragonfly was considered to be an animal of witches and trolls, who where evil and feared.
I was on a kayak trip heading down the Wisconsin river. It was hot and full of mosquitos. Within a few minutes of getting eaten alive, the dragonflies appeared. I felt and heard them near my ears as they feasted on mosquitos. It was quite an experience!
Absolutely facinating!! Worthy of a multi episode series!
I love dragonflies, and this video was excellent!