Mangrove darner (Coryphaeschna viriditas)

The Aeshnidae, also called aeshnids, hawkers, or darners, is a family of

dragonflies A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threa ...

. The family includes the largest dragonflies found in North America and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and among the largest dragonflies on the planet.

Description

Common worldwide or nearly worldwide genera are ''

Aeshna ''Aeshna'', or the mosaic darners, is a genus of dragonflies from the family Aeshnidae. Species within this genus are generally known as "hawkers" (Old World) or "darners" (New World). Description These are relatively large dragonflies. T ...

'' and ''

Anax (Greek alphabet, Greek: ; from earlier , ') is an ancient Greek word for "tribal chief, lord, (military) leader".. It is one of the two Greek titles traditionally translated as "king", the other being basileus, and is inherited from Mycenaean Gr ...

''. The African ''

Anax tristis (Greek: ; from earlier , ') is an ancient Greek word for "tribal chief, lord, (military) leader".. It is one of the two Greek titles traditionally translated as "king", the other being basileus, and is inherited from Mycenaean Greece. It is nota ...

'' has a wingspan over 125 mm, making it one of the world's largest known dragonflies. There are 41 North American species in 11 genera in this family. Most European species belong to ''Aeshna''. Their American name "darner" stems from the female abdomens looking like a sewing needle, as they cut into plant stem when they lay their eggs through the

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

. The dragonflies mate in flight. The

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are deposited in water or close by. The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e (

nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are typ ...

or naiads) are generally slender compared to those of other families, with a long and flat extensible lower lip (labium). The larvae are aquatic

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

s, feeding on other insects and even small fish. The adults spend large amounts of time in the air and seem to fly tirelessly with their four large and powerful

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...

. They can fly forwards or backwards or hover like a helicopter. The wings are always extended horizontally. Their

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

s are long and thin. Most are colored blue and or green, with black and occasionally yellow. Their large, hemispherical,

compound eye A compound eye is a visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens, and photoreceptor cells which disti ...

s touch in the midline and nearly cover their heads. They have an extremely good sight, and are voracious insect predators, using their sharp, biting mouthparts. They are, therefore, very beneficial. All are extremely hard to catch because of their flying abilities and keen sight. A proposal has been made to split this family into Aeshnidae and Telephlebiidae. The name may have resulted from a printer's error in spelling the Greek ''Aechma'', "a spear". The spelling Aeschnidae has been intermittently used over a period of time, but is now abandoned for the original name Aeshnidae. However, derived genus names (such as ''

Rhionaeschna ''Rhionaeschna'' is the scientific name of a genus of dragonflies from the family Aeshnidae The Aeshnidae, also called aeshnids, hawkers, or darners, is a family of dragonflies. The family includes the largest dragonflies found in North Americ ...

'') retain the 'sch' spelling, as this is how they were first cited.

Genera

References

*Silsby, Jill (2001). ''Dragonflies of the World''. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C.

External links

List of Anisoptera of the World
{{Taxonbar, from=Q516862H Aeshnoidea Odonata of Asia Odonata of Africa Odonata of Australia Odonata of Europe Odonata of Oceania Odonata of North America Odonata of South America Taxa named by Jules Pierre Rambur Odonata families

Description

Genera

See also

References

External links