Talk:Dragonfly

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[edit] Picture

Too bad I haven't gotten a picture yet that shows the wings, the head, the body, and the legs all in the same picture (I'd take one of these two down, so as to unclutter the article).

Maybe I should sharpen the tail of the lower one in Photoshop or something, and remove the top picture? --KQ 17:43 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

I've drawn and added a high res (3000 x 3000 pixel!) image illustrating the morphology (layout) and anatomy of a typical dragonfly. I feel this adds immensely to the scientific factual information presented in this article. I would support removing one of the pictures of dragonfly's as several are basically just pics of dragonflys from different angles. Theres only so many images one can have on an article before they simply start to repeat what they're showing without adding any new information to the page. Perhaps one of the bottom two illustrating specific species could go? Other option is to add more text to fill the page out?--WikipedianProlific(Talk) 23:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Only one suborder?

Opps! Looks like there is a second suborder, the zygoptera. I will input them now. --mav

Opps again. Suborder. Grumble. --mav

Well, how about this one? Odonata, Isophlebioptera, Parazygoptera, Euparazygoptera, Triassolestoidea, Triassolestidae, Triassolestinae, Triassolestes [Wing venation: no antefurcal crossveins present in the space between RP and MA basal of the midfork; (only reversed in † Italophlebia gervasuttii)] Reig (1963) / Tillyard (1918). I found this data looking for a nomen-dubium in the dinosauria. The Dragonfly won with the 1918 date.

[edit] Merge Odonata with Dragonfy?

KQ
Other than the HTML issues (which you already fixed), the major problem with this table is that dragonflies are a suborder and you were using the order table. Now there are duplicated family lists both here and at Odonata. As a general rule I don't like articles on sub-orders becuase they lead to messes like this. But since dragonflies and damselflies are sufficiently differentiated in the average person's mind, I see little reason for doing the strictly logical thing (that is a merge of the two suborders into Odonata). Perhaps it would be best to not have family lists at Odonata and only have direct links here.... --mav

Hm, ok. You're talking over my head; I'm not very strong in biology.  :-) Take whatever action you think is best--except I'd very much like not to merge this one with the article at Odonata, simply because people do recognize a dragonfly on sight. Was your proposal to move or shorten the table or to move the article itself? --KQ
I was just noting that there is some duplication between the tables in the order (Odonata) and the suborder (Dragonfly). As I said above, I don't think it would be good to merge dragonfly and Odonata. I will make the needed changes to the Odonata table. --mav
Ok, thanks.  :-) --KQ

I would certainly concur that merging is not a good idea. However, it seems overly redundant to include in this article on dragonflies, various facts on damselflies, given that damselflies have their own article and the Odonata article exists for compare/contrast information. - Marshman 18:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Optical illusion

The 'recently discovered optical illusion' has been long known to those of us who photograph them! I could never have taken my photos with a 55 mm lens otherwise (http://sankey.ws/odonata.html). Feel free to use any of my photos any time.

[edit] Flight speed

I'm dubious about the speed quoted. I have never seen anything faster than around 40mph quoted, and the link is not exactly to a rigourous academic source! In fact Silsby (op cit) quotes 70 Kmph which is 43mph.Harasseddad 12:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm also skeptical. I'm not happy with the source provided either. When running a google search for information, at least include parameters like site:edu. I'm not saying everything on a .edu domain is gospel, or that .coms are always full of shit, but it can't hurt to weed out the cruft. I ran a search incorporating that term, and came up with this quote: "Most people think that dragonflies can fly at speeds of 60 miles per hour [but] that's simply not true." from http://www.ohiou.edu/southeastohio/marchives/dragon.html
I'll leave editing the main article to someone else who may have more time or interest in the subject to check further. Newsmare 16:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I seem to recall that when someone added the speed in, I did a google search and found a few sources that were reasonable, but no authortative sources. If we can find a good source that has a top speed of less than that we should cite it and change it to something like "at least XX mph". Wikibofh(talk) 17:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Range of quoted species

It might be nice if someone authoritative could add a note of the range of the various species mentioned in the text. For example, is the Green darner a North American or European species? --APRCooper 20:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Deleted vulgar vandalism, not sure how to restore the page to its original form but I hope someone can. Bentobias 02:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Deleted further vulgar vandalism (quote: gay gay gay) from General Facts - Record Breakers. Yuric Allison 11:36, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've stuck a short (48 hr) block on the vandal, jimfbleak 14:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted Folklore section

Someone deleted the folklore section outright. That may have been too drastic. There has hardly been any discussion either pro or con, and the text did give some "references" (Feynman and Mr. Stout), although incomplete and hard to trace. Anyway here is the deleted text for the record:

Folklore

Dragonflies seem to evoke a particular kind of terror in some people.<!--Is this specific to the US? Never heard of it here in Brazil - nor in Europe--> One notable misapprehension is that a dragonfly will sew your mouth shut if you let it get too close. Noted physicist Richard Feynman chased dragonflies around a pool once to prove to his friends that they are in fact completely harmless.

Says Joseph Stout (49): "I remember as a kid, living close to the countryside in the 1960's, we called the Dragonflies, 'Snakedoctors'. Anytime we saw them flying around, we started taking a cautious eye to the ground, looking for snakes."<!--Where? UK? United States?-->

All the best, Jorge Stolfi 20:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Answer to "where? UK? United States?" by Joseph Stout. While growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. (Anon user 70.178.23.137)
OK, I have restored the second paragraph. What about the first one -- do we have references? Jorge Stolfi 12:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
While the quote from Stout is interesting, I'm not sure it's appopriate: for one I'm not convinced it's notable, and secondly it sounds like it's original, and Wikipedia is not supposed to be an original reference. --Saforrest 00:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm from Ontario, Canada, and I've never heard about anyone being afraid of dragonflies.

i'm writing an article on dragonflies for a class i'm taking. last night i was reading about many myths/folktales involving dragonflies and different names people have given them.

1. devil's darning needle or darning needle - it was believed the dragonfly could sew the ears, mouths, eyes and noses of sleeping people - especially children - closed. this naturally caused fear of the dragonfly.

2. snake doctors - dragonflies were thought to attack snakes and other reptiles. so, i would assume mr. stout's claim could be valid.

3. horse stingers - horses grazing near water, with millions of flies buzzing around, attract dragonflies. people originally thought the dragonflies were after the horses - as we know, they were actually after the flies!

4. mosquito hawk - origin unknown. thought to be from their hawklike flight and the fact that they prey on mosquitos.

    • the book Dragonflies, by Heather Amery.
  • Is that Dragonflies (Creepy Crawly Collection) by Heather Amery, Tony Gibbons (Illustrator)? Wikibofh(talk) 17:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • yes. Jobranham1964 18:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)jo

[edit] Picture

Is the picture (commons) suitable for the picture? I don't have a classification for it though → Elliot (T|C|W) 13:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about this questions about dragonflies?

Usually how many animals live together? What's the scientific name of the dragonfly? Is it a incomplete or complete metamorphis, how long the animal What parasite and/or diseases does the dragonfly carry? What effect does the dragonflies have on the area in with lives?

Further questions: What function does their elongated body serve? Stability/aerodynamics?


I'd like to have some information added about UV lights and dragonflies. After camping in Ontario's wilderness multiply times with a bunch of techno freaks, we've noticed that they are attracted to the blacklights. Unfortunately, they'd fly into them so fast sometimes that they would die in the process. This may have contributed to especially high concentrations of mosquitoes at our camp site, since we seemed to have killed a hell of a lot of dragonflies. It's disappointing mosquitoes don't do the same thing. --afxgrin@gmail.com

[edit] Naiads

Naiad (an old greek name of a type of water nymph)is the correct term for the water bound larval dragonfly, rather than nayad. A quick search gave 154 its for 'dragonfly naiad' and none for 'dragonfly nayad', for example here [1] and here[2]Felix-felix 15:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nicknames

The new information in the most recent edit (sometimes called "snake doctors") can, I think, be put into some sort of nickname area. "Snake doctor" is apparently used mainly in southern U. S. (http://www.bartelby.net/61/51/S0505150.html), so I don't think it's appropriate for the introductory area of the article. What does everyone else think of this? I also found http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn, which lists additional nicknames for the dragonfly. Are these two links valid sources for some sort of nickname section? QueenStupid 19:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suborder conflict

This article explains that the suborder of dragonflies is Epiprocta, and that Anisoptera is an infraorder. Well, I had never heard of Epiprocta, so I thought I'd look into this business. So I start off with a google search, and here's what I find: "suborder anisoptera" gets 18,700 hits, and "suborder epiprocta" gets 865 hits. But google tests never were a totally reliable source, particularly when it comes to taxonomic names which change so often. So I thought I'd try a biology database, and, connecting to Web of Knowledge though my university, I try again "anisoptera" (938 results) and "epiprocta"... 0 results. Now this is rather surprising, that the suborder of dragonflies is not mentionned in any scientific article!

Just to check some more, I looked in several books: Steven A. Marshall's "Insects, their natural history and diversity" (Firefly Books, 2006), Triplehorn and Johnson's "Borror and Delong's introduction to the study of insects" (Thomson Books, 7th ed., 2005) and the field guide by Michael Chinery "Insectes de France et d'Europe Occidentale" (Flammarion, reprinted 2005). None of these books (the two first at least are reliable and less than a year old) don't even mention Epiprocta anywhere, and put the dragonflies in the suborder Anisoptera.

It would be great if someone could clarify this mysterious situation. As far as I'm concerned, it seems that Epiprocta is a term used only by a minority, and I can't seem to find any reliable sources for it. Exactly how recent is this new classification? Could someone provide examples of scientific articles that use that term? Thanks, IronChris | (talk) 22:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of images

Hi,

Just commenting on the recent removal of the majority of images and placing them in the gallery - I think it would have been better to leave them as a "strip" going down the RHS as it is less likely someone will scroll down to the bottom and see them there. Some people may just have a quick look, see there are no other pictures immediately visible and give up - which would be a shame.--Fir0002 06:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bite or Sting

I don't believe dragonflies can even bite or sting. Any other knowledge of this?? 11 Jan 07 mh —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.137.245.199 (talk) 20:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Terminology

In the second paragraph and in the "Life Cycle" section, the term "larvae" and "larval" are used to describe juvenile dragonflies. Those terms refer to creatures that undergo complete metamorphosis. The term "nymph" should be used when discussing creatures (e.g., dragonflies) that undergo incomplete metamorphosis.

If someone were to click on the links to read the definitions, they would certainly be confused since the terms are mutually exclusive. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.32.93.100 (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

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