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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Patrick Barkham

‘Fearless and quietly astonishing’: the dragonfly that migrates further than any other insect

A wandering glider dragonfly

All hail the wandering glider, a citizen of the globe, an insect for all of us.

Whenever we see a dragonfly zipping through the airspace and devouring tiny insects with aplomb, we can appreciate they are so timelessly effective that they have barely needed to tweak their way of life in 200m years. Odonates are directly descended from some of the earliest winged insects, known as griffin flies, which evolved around 317m years ago.

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