RAD NAIADS

Dragonflies are beautiful, fast, and the way layers of mosquitoes.  I love them!  But what folks typically think of as dragonflies, just scrapes the surface.  Most folks just think of the ones that fly around ponds.  Indeed, there is a whole extra secret life of dragonflies.  A dragonfly egg hatches and the larva (called a naiad) begins its life in water.  Naiads look like something from a science fiction horror movie.  They have a mask-like mouth part with interior spines.  They fling this out and impale their prey; drawing it back to the face to rip the prey to shreds.  This is cool, but the adults do it to.  An assertive naiad can take down a small fish or tadpole.  (Does anyone else think it is funny when an invertebrate eats a vertebrate?)  Well, that really isn’t the best part.  The best part is that dragonfly naiads are butt breathers.  Their gills are in their anal cavity!  They draw oxygenated water into their anal cavity, across the gills, and then release the water.  They can forcibly expel the water to jet forward to capture prey or avoid their own predators.  Scientists call this “anal propulsion” (tee hee).