Next time you see a dragonfly, try to watch it catch its next meal on the go. Good luck!
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"Unless we film it in high speed, we can't see whether it caught the prey, but when it gets back to its perch, if we see it chewing, we know that it was successful," says Stacey Combes, a biomechanist at Harvard University. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), she and her team are studying how dragonflies pull off complicated aerial feats that include hunting and mating in mid-air. She set up her lab in typical "dragonfly country".
"Our lab is at the Concord Field Station in Bedford, Mass. This is a field station of Harvard University about a half-hour from the main campus," says Combes. "We're surrounded by woods and ponds, which is an ideal habitat to find dragonflies".
The scientists have already identified 20 species at the pond so far. On this outing, they hope to net a few to study. But, it's not easy to catch a dragonfly.
"Alright, I got one. I lost it," exclaims team member and biomechanist Jay Iwasaki. "It's a Libellula cyanea," he notes when he finally catches one. "It's in the family of Libellulidae, which are dragonflies known as skimmers; this is a male. You can tell this species in particular from the white dots on its wings"
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