A dragonfly… THE SIZE OF AN EAGLE!

name: meganeura monyi (MEG-an-you-rah)
meaning: giant nerves
lived: 311 - 282 mya
animal type: Odonatid insect
diet: carnivorous
size: 75 cm wingspan
found: Europe
fossil:

This fella was flying around in the tropical, swampy forests of the Carboniferous period (if you want see a time line, remember I’ve made one for you to reference) it looked, flew and basically acted just like the dragonflies that we have today. The only significant difference would have been their reproductive organs. On the meganeura it would have been right on the end of it’s tail where as on common day dragonflies it is located around its head. Lady dragon flies today have a tendency to eat their mate, so researchers think that the ancient insect may have put the female into a trance, flipped her over, done his business and gotten out of there in a safe amount of time.

It is, to our knowledge, the largest flying insect species ever to appear on earth, even it’s 30 cm long larvae were ambush predators. The air at this time is speculated to have a much higher oxygen level than what we have today - which would make the air much denser, allowing the insect to fly more efficiently at its size. For a while that theory was dismissed until more research popped up in around 1999 linking gigantism and oxygen availability. (In a Nature article by Chapelle & Peck)

It wouldn’t only take other insects for food, but also some smaller ground animals. It is speculated that it probably rarely stopped flying - really only to mate and lie their eggs. The larvae of course didn’t fly but would have spent their time on water logged land emerging to hunt spiders, insects and small amphibians. Although the insect was a hunter, it is found that some may have only eaten fruit. When the world started to dry up about 200 mya the insect adapted quite well and increased in numbers.

The insects start to appear on the geological time scale at around 400 mya, they were fully flying by 330 mya and over running the forests by 200 mya. The mayflies, dragonflies and cockroaches are some of the species that are still with us today. The first fossils were discovered in France in the Stephanian Coal Measures of Commentary in 1880. Five years later the paleontologist Charles Brogniart described and named the fossils.

We’re getting close to dinosaur time!!!!

Our megneura makes an appearance near the end of this video, again, I don’t like the “monster” bit of the title - but I just can’t get over how amazingly constructed the animals all are and how cool it all is.