A person sometimes pays so little attention to all sorts of insects, cockroaches, crawling and flying very close. And all because he knows very little interesting and unusual about insects. But this small world, which occupies the entire planet, is full of important, interesting and unsolved mysteries. Here, for example, the eye of a dragonfly. This is an amazing organ of vision, and the dragonfly does not have a pair of eyes, but several thousand!
Beautiful dragonfly
Dragonfly is a representative of the world of insects, belonging to a detachment with an unusual name - ancient amphibious well-flying insects, or infraclass of winged insects. However, the scientific community is still debating how and why it is necessary to separate dragonflies from the rest of the insect world. After all, they are very unusual creatures. According to some reports, the dragonfly is one of the oldest representatives of the living world on our planet. Everything is interesting in it: from the method of breeding offspring to the flight technique. And the dragonfly eye is a real miracle of nature. However, the whole world around us is a great miracle.
The structure of a dragonfly
According to entomologists, ourThere are 6,650 species of dragonflies on the planet, and a tenth of them are fossil species. These insects come in a wide variety of sizes. The wingspan of the smallest representatives is 20 mm, and the largest dragonfly spreads its wings by 191 mm. Dragonflies are beautiful insects that usually have a fairly bright color. But their body consists of the same sections as all insects:
- head;
- chest;
- abdomen.
Insects are singled out in a separate world because they have such a body structure, and they all have three pairs of limbs attached to the chest. But the dragonfly is an amazing creature. It is considered the most voracious predator of the planet among insects. According to scientists, she eats 40 flies in two hours. But not only gluttony is an amazing quality of a dragonfly. The most unique thing about it, perhaps, is the organs of vision. The dragonfly eye is a whole optical laboratory.
How many eyes does a dragonfly have?
In appearance, this insect has only 2 huge round eyes. But in fact, this is a completely wrong idea. After all, the structure of the dragonfly eye is amazing - it consists of several tens of thousands of small eyes, there are up to 30 thousand of them. Rather, it would be correct to call them facets. They are very, very small and set so close to each other that they seem to be one huge eye. But facets look separately from each other. It turns out a huge view in all directions, although each facet sees quite a bit.
Dragonfly has a short range of vision - only about 8 meters. But that's enough for her. The structure of the dragonfly eye is surprising not only by the number of facets that make it up. These organs of vision have a cone-shaped shape: the wide part is the visible surface, and the narrow edge of all the facets are assembled into one whole in the depths of the eye. Unlike a human who, thanks to the lens, sees the image upside down, and only then the brain processes the information as expected, the dragonfly initially sees the upright image.
Big eyes? No, tiny eyes
If you look at the eyes of a dragonfly under a microscope, you can see that they are different in size: at the top of the facets are larger, and at the bottom - smaller. In addition, scientists have found that the upper facets see only blue, and those located below see other shades. From the point of view of a dragonfly, this is very convenient. After all, insects flying against the background of the sky or below are more noticeable to the huntress. Dragonflies also see ultraviolet light. Scientists have found that another feature of the compound eye is its ability to distinguish between the flickering of light. The insects that the dragonfly feeds on rapidly flap their wings, and the hunter sees this and attacks.
Look back
Those who are interested in dragonflies ask if a dragonfly has simple eyes or not? An interesting fact is that these insects have two complex organs of vision, consisting of thousands of facets, as well as three simple ones, having one lens each and located on the crown of the insect. Two complex and three simple eyes allow you to get an almost circular view. And together with the maneuverability and speed of flight, this dragonfly is enough to lead a well-fed life.
The most dexterous and fastest
Not only the eye of a dragonfly - amazing in this insect. Wings alone are worth it! They have small specks-thickenings, which are called the wing eye. Aviation designers also came up with the same designs on airplanes. This detail helps to avoid wing oscillation and breakage during flight. By the way, a dragonfly flies at an amazing speed - up to 100 km/h.
And dragonfly larvae that live in water bodies are the most unusual inhabitants of ponds and ditches. Their correct name is nymphs. They live long. They spend 2 years in a pond. But the adults themselves, the correct name of which is adults, live 2 times less. This period is only 10 months if they do not die earlier. Larval nymphs, while in the water, molt 10 times and grow up to 4-5 centimeters in length, becoming almost the largest insects among their neighbors in the reservoir. The larva moves like a squid - with the help of a special bag into which it sucks water, and then pushes it out with force, like a jet engine. The way in which the larva catches food, using the lower lip for this, is also unusual. In a calm state, this organ is complex and placed on the front of the head. Its correct name is "mask". But when a tadpole or some kind of beetle swims by, the lip unfolds and, with the help of two hooks located at its end, catches the prey and brings it tomouth.
Dragonfly is an amazing representative of the insect world. This is a beautiful, fast and unusual assistant to a person in protecting plants from pests. Yes, dragonflies destroy several tens of thousands of insects, mostly harmful to plants, in their rather short life. And they deserve respect and attention from a person.
