Get to know the cute predatory dragonfly

Hello all steemian friends, how are you, I hope you are fine, warm greetings especially to all of you in the Lakhsmi community.

Dragonflies are grouped into the order Odonata. Odonata means the toothed jaw at the end of the labium (lower lip) has sharp protrusions (spines) resembling teeth.

Dragonflies are a group of ancient insects that have survived various changes over time. This shows that dragonflies are adaptive to environmental changes.

Laily et al. (2018) stated that dragonflies have an important role in maintaining the balance of the food chain in the ecosystem. Dragonflies are Flagship Species which are the top predators in the food chain in aquatic ecosystems (Buchori et al. 2019).

Dragonflies act as predators of small insects, even eating smaller dragonflies (Rahadi 2013 in Laily et al. 2018), so they can act as a balancer for other insect populations (Subramanian 2005 in Wijayanto 2017).

Apart from being predators, dragonflies can also be used as bioindicators in an aquatic environment. Buchori et al. (2019) stated that dragonflies are not only used as bioindicators of clean waters, but adult dragonflies are also a good indicator for seeing complex changes in a landscape.

Dragonfly nymphs are very sensitive to changes in water quality (water chemistry). Odonata live in waters when they are pre-adult (nymphs), so they can be used as indicators of water quality or as agents for monitoring water quality.

This is because Odonata are aquatic insects which are very sensitive to changes in the content of substances in the water (Rini 2011 in Wijayanto 2017). Dragonfly nymphs that have high sensitivity to water will die and their existence in nature will be threatened with extinction (Kalkman 2008 in Laily et al. 2018).

Their sensitivity to changing environmental conditions makes dragonflies excellent biological indicators of changing environmental conditions. Dragonflies' relationships with their habitats are closely related to their functional importance in the ecosystem, and their relationships with other species and resources.

Thank you all, hopefully this will be additional insight for all of us, my regards @gioelewcs