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Dragonflies having simple flaps shed the eggs in water, mostly in flight. Dragonflies having ovipositors use them to puncture soft tissues of plants and place the eggs singly in each puncture they make. [32] [34] [35] [36] Dragonfly nymphs vary in form with species, and are loosely classed into claspers, sprawlers, hiders, and burrowers. [17]
Common worldwide or nearly worldwide genera are Aeshna and Anax. Anax includes some of the largest dragonflies, including the North American A. walsinghami, Hawaiian A. strenuus, European A. imperator and A. immaculifrons, and African A. tristis, but these are all exceeded by another member of the family, the Asian Tetracanthagyna plagiata, which by wingspan and weight is the world's largest ...
The green darner is a large dragonfly; males grow to 76 mm (3.0 in) in length with a wingspan up to 80 mm (3.1 in). [9] [10] Females oviposit in aquatic vegetation, eggs laid beneath the water surface. Nymphs (naiads) are aquatic carnivores, feeding on insects, tadpoles, and small fish.
Damselflies tend to be less robust, and appear weaker in flight; their wings are narrow near the base and (in most species) held folded back over the abdomen when perched. Dragonfly eyes occupy much of the animal's head, touching (or nearly touching) each other across the face. In damselflies, there is typically a gap in between the eyes.
The species is one of the most common and most widespread dragonflies in Europe. The range in the Western Palearctic covers a large part of Europe, to Scotland and southern Scandinavia in the north and to Italy (without the southwest) and the northern Balkans in the south); the eastern boundary is formed by the Urals and the western by Ireland.
Hine's emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana), for example, is an endangered species in the United States. Corduliidae are known to occasionally take quantities of their eggs at the tip of their stomach, before then sticking their eggs in mud or water using a sprout-like appendage that extends from their abdomens. [2]
One of the largest species in Europe, the emperor dragonfly is exceeded by magnificent emperor, which occurs only marginally in the east Mediterranean [9] and in length by females of the golden-ringed dragonfly, a species with an unusually long ovipositor. [10] Thus, in most of Europe the emperor is the largest dragonfly species present.
The larvae live primarily in stream banks, mostly in burrows, but the larvae of the eastern US species, Tachopteryx thoreyi, the gray petaltail, live in depressions under wet leaves. [4] The semiaquatic habitat of the larvae makes the petaltails unique in the modern dragonfly families.