Prehistoric Dragonflies: When ‘flies’ was yet to be part of their name
Imagine this…but bigger. Covering your entire computer screen, looking at you with its preying eyes, ready to devour your face in under a single minute while you scream your head off. Literally.
Terrified? Yeah, me too.
Buuuuuut…nothing to worry about.
These little (huh?) f*ckers went extinct a few hundred million years ago. So chances are if you see a giant dragonfly in front of you, it’s probably just your imagination (and if it isn’t and you manage to survive, somehow, make sure to take at least one selfie with it. Don’t know about the money but you’ll definitely get that Insta clout).
A little background
Belonging to the Meganisoptera family of giant insects, entirely predatory in nature, the Meganeuropsis was the largest insect to roam the earth’s skies. These gigantic-flying-ugly-monsters existed even before the first dinosaur took its first baby steps over those poor little alligator ancestors (apparently, it also yelled “see you later” in dino language and hence the saying came to be). This is good news for people like me who jump even at the sight of a cockroach. Or dragonflies for that matter. Or, insects in general.
Also, if you still haven’t realized, they’re not actually dragonflies. Modern-day dragonflies belong in the Odonata order while these little (huh?) f*ckers belong in the protodonata (or, as I’ve already stated above, Meganisoptera). They also have a nickname, Griffinflies.
How big were they?
Well, I already described to you how big they were (read the intro) but if you want some numbers, here:
Body: approximately 50 centimeters long.
Wings: about 60–75 centimeters long.
Compared to today’s largest insect, the Hercules Beetle, which only reaches about 16 centimeters in length, it’s not even a fair match.
And why were they so big?
How much oxygen does Earth’s atmosphere currently have? Twenty-one percent. How much oxygen did it have a few hundred million years ago? Thirty-one.
Now, why does this seemingly small amount of oxygen result in such large size differences in these insects?
Okay, so here’s a back to school science lesson for you all; Insects do not have lungs. They do not have a throat for breathing. They breathe through their skin (abdomen, specifically) which has a network of tiny, little tubes called tracheae (humans only have one trachea). Air enters through the skin and into the tracheae. The higher the oxygen, the deeper it’ll go.
Insects have an upper limit on their body due to the oxygen available in the atmosphere. Since Earth’s atmosphere had a higher amount of oxygen (even ten percent is a lot when we’re talking on a global level), these insects ended up growing in size far more than today’s insects can.
So, is there a chance that these giant insects will return?
Nowhere in the near future.
It took a global calamity (which, by the way, eradicated ninety percent of the living species at the time) for oxygen levels to drop to what it is today. We’d need something of equal magnitude to bring them back. And the time, hundreds of millions of years.
So don’t you worry. These little (huh?) f*ckers are not going to bother you or your descendants (at least for a few hundred million years).
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