Did you know the biggest dragonfly in the world has a wingspan of 19cm? <\/p>
But in terms of wingspan, the helicopter damselfly Megaloprepus caerulatus<\/em> from the Central American rainforests is the biggest dragonfly, with a spread of 19cm.<\/p>\n Fearsome predators, adults often feed on orb-weaver spiders in the forest understory, while the naiad prey on tadpoles and aquatic insects.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/div> Nonetheless, even this spectacular creature is dwarfed by the ancestral odonates that ruled the skies before vertebrates moved into aerial niches. Fuelled by the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Permian, they attained wingspans of 75cm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Main image: Helicopter Damselfly in La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n Did you know the biggest dragonfly in the world has a wingspan of 19cm? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":30024,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world.jpg",2121,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/whats-the-biggest-dragonfly-in-the-world-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Did you know the biggest dragonfly in the world has a wingspan of 19cm?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/30023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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