When I was a child, I loved playing in the field and met a lot of flying dragonflies. When we were young, we thought it was very beautiful and wanted to catch them. Adults always tell us not to hurt them. They are not only our good helpers, but also beneficial insects. So as beneficial insects, do they only eat insects? What else do they eat? Come and reveal it with Xiaobian!

Dragonfly is an invertebrate belonging to the class Insecta. According to research, it is the insect with the largest eyes in the world, and has very good eyesight. It is an ancient insect group. At the same time, dragonflies are also dragonflies. They are also divided into three suborders: Heteroptera, Homoptera and mesoptera. There are about 5000 species in the world.

Dragonflies usually fly and stay between ponds or riverside ridges, but what you can’t think of is that when a dragonfly was a baby larva, it lived in the water, just like a tadpole. Dragonflies don’t use their gills to breathe when they are young, and they almost don’t use their gills to deliver food when they are young. When they grow up, they have wings to fly and prey on flying insects. Their food is mainly mosquitoes and some different kinds of harmful insects, but what they eat is also different from dragonflies in different periods. The early dragonfly larvae feed on small crustaceans and protozoa. The later larvae feed on chironomid larvae, aquatic beetles, snails and even small fish. They can eat food much heavier than themselves. They are the king of the stomach.

There is a clear correlation between the eating habits of dragonfly larvae and their species. Dragonfly larvae mainly feed on Diptera larvae, such as rock fly larvae, chironomid and some small fish, while species living in still water mainly feed on Diptera larvae such as tadpoles, shrimp fish, Daphnia and chironomid. They are the natural enemies of pests, while dragonflies are some birds and large omnivorous fish.

In addition, although the dragonfly is so thin and small, its appetite is very powerful. A large green dragonfly commonly known as “qingtouleng” can easily eliminate about 2000 aphids and other small flying insects in a day. A horse big head dragonfly can eat nearly 1000 small flying insects a day, and can also eat 40 flies or 840 mosquitoes in an hour. This has been reflected since childhood. When I was a child, dragonfly larvae loved to eat mosquito larvae. They can eat 3000 mosquito larvae a year. It is destined to be the cultivation of eating goods.

Do you know what dragonflies eat after reading it? But don’t forget to protect them!