re: The dragonfly is the most efficient / lethal predator in the animal kingdom

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dragonfly



Mosquito Hawk

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Snake Doctor

I like dragonflies best when they sit my fishing pole and chill

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I know this post is long, but this kind of stuff absolutely fascinates me and I hope it does for someone else.

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Thanks for posting that. I have a nest of paper wasps too on my porch where I hang out. Very interesting that they can remember your face.

When we open an upstairs bathroom window, there is a huge paper wasp next right above it. They clearly know us. I can stick my head out the window, with the wasps an inch or two above me, and no aggression. They also eat a tom of garden pests. We are a paper wasp protectorate.

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They have a nest with a central queen, but that queen will also allow secondary queens if they're family members. The way this works is because they're one of the few insects that can recognize faces, including humans. They're able to recognize faces of family members and humans that are regularly around them and have proven to pose no threat.

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How do scientists determine this?

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Disked up a giant yellow jacket nest and didnt know until I was making the second pass on that side and they lit me up. They must be able to communicate, because 5-6 hit me at one time and the rest followed me across the field.

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I unwittingly mowed over a yellowjacket nest while volunteering to mow old folks' lawns for church when I was in high school. They lit me up to the tune of 37 stings, sent me sprinting down the street in front of a UPS truck. They can sting multiple times, so they got in my shorts and shirt and were stinging me everywhere. I immediately resigned my volunteer duties and went home

20 years later I'm taking cover by a brick and wood fence for an arrest warrant being served by many agencies. While squatted down trying to be silent I stepped on a 2x4 laying on the grass that had been there for a while. Apparently there was a yellowjacket nest under it and I immediately got stings in the elbow, wrist, and square in the middle of my forehead. I took off running and gave my cover away instantly in front of all these very serious law enforcement agents

Long story short, neither threat of God nor bullets are enough to make my subconscious stick around for yellowjackets

I once saw a dragonfly that had landed on the back of another dragon fly and was eating away at his preys neck to sever the head. That was pretty disgusting.