Dragonflies have been on this planet for 325 million years, and have evolved into deadly, yet beautiful predators. Both the adults and nymphs are voracious hunters. The nymphs typically live from a few months to a few years, the larger the dragonfly, the longer the life, but the adults mostly live only a few weeks. Nymphs live an aquatic life, feeding on small invertebrates, tadpoles and small fish. Once they are adults, they feed on the wing taking other flying insects, and in the case of the larger dragonflies, will even eat other smaller dragonflies. 

Adult dragonflies (imagoes) are made up of 3 distinct parts, head, thorax, and abdomen. The head, being mainly 2 large compound eyes, which meet at the top of the head, and the mouth which is toothed and used for catching its prey in flight. The thorax, has 3 pairs of legs which are used for perching, climbing plants and catching food, 2 pairs of wings and large muscles for flight. The abdomen is normally long and slender and consists of 10 segments. 

I have included the closely related damselflies in this section, as they are often confused with dragonflies. Generally, dragonflies' wings are held flat and away from the body, whereas damselflies’ wings are folded at rest, either along or above the abdomen. I do not have a macro lens, so I use my 100 x 400 lens, which requires a minimum distance of 1800mm from the subject to focus. The damselflies are tricky to photograph being so small and me standing 2 metres away from them. That is me making excuses for some of the shots. 

All the dragonflies and damselflies in this section have all been see at Katelios.