This fella was found hanging from our garage door opener. Look at the detail of his body. Isn't that amazing?!  I can't help but smile and think about how awesome our Creator is.

 Here are a few interesting facts about dragonflies:

• Dragonfly eyes contain up to 30,000 individual lenses. Human eyes only have one.
• They have two sets of wings. They don’t have to beat their wings in unison like other insects do. Their front wings can be going up while their backs ones are going down.
• They only flap their wings at about 30 beats per second compared to a bee’s 300 bps.
• Excellent and strong fliers, they can loop-the-loop, hover, and fly backwards.
• An Australian Dragonfly has been clocked at 36 miles per hour.
• Dragonfly nymphs (the first stage after hatching) live in the water for about a year.
• While underwater they eat mosquito nymphs, tiny fish, and pollywogs. When they have matured to airborne insects, they catch mosquitoes and gnats in mid-air before devouring them.
• After leaving the water and becoming flying insects, they only live for about a month.
• Fossil records date the dragonfly back to dinasour time or beyond.
• The largest dragonfly recorded from fossil records had a wing span of about two and one-half feet.
• There are approximatley 5,000 different species of dragonflies in the world today, on every continent except Antarctica.
• There are approximately 450 different species in the United States.
• Dragonflies are known as beneficial insects because they eat so many harmful insects such as mosquitoes, gnats, ants termites and even butterflies, spiders and other dragonflies.
• Dragonflies do not harm people. They do not bite and they do not sting.
• Sight is the dragonfly's most important sense. Each eye can contain up to 30,000 tiny lenses.
• Their natural predators are birds.
• Among the many names for dragonflies around the world are Old Glassy from China, Water Dipper from England and Big Needle of Wings from the ancient Celts.
• The largest dragonfly today is found in Costa Rica. It has a wingspan of 7 1/2 inches.
• In spite of their delicate appearance, the wings are remarkably strong, which is a tribute to the weight/strength characteristics of the tiny tubes, called veins, that reinforce the dragonfly wing.