#dancing dropwing

[timeless-takes]

The Three Dancers in the Garden

Photo credit: Eleanor Chua.

Three Dancing Dropwing (Trithemis pallidinervis) performing around the Water Lily Pond. This capture had need of a 2-stop overexposure to bring out the colours.

[animalworld]

DANCING DROPWING Trithemis pallidinervis Botanic Garden, Singapore Macro ©InSectHunter

Trithemis pallidinervis is normally found at grassland and open marshes. It likes to perch high at grass blade with wing slightly pointing up. The male and female have similar marking. However, the face of male is metallic purple but rather yellow white in female.

Dragonflies have strongly biting mouthparts and are active and aggressive carnivores, preying mostly on other insects. They catch insects on the wing. The adults have massively large eyes. These eyes may each contain as many as 30 000 individual lenses or ommatidia. Because of this Dragonflies have exceptionally good eyesight and have been known to respond to stimuli from more than 40 feet away. They have very small and poorly developed antennae though. They have two pairs of almost equally sized long thin membranous wings. Unlike most insects, which either flap both pairs of wings in unison (i.e. Bees and Butterflies), or only flap the hind pair (i.e. Beetles), or only have one pair (i.e. Flies), Dragonflies can flap or beat their wings independently. This means the front wings can be going down while the back ones are coming up. Dragonflies are excellent fliers, hover and fly backwards quite easily. Dragonflies are a very ancient order of insects and fossils exist from more than 300 million years ago. Dragonflies are also relatively large insects, even now, but in they past they were much larger.

Source: http://www.greenunity.net/odonata/intro.asp

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Cho Tombo

Zenithorpia Lanai

Dragonfly covered in dew (macro)