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Dragonfly Research Paper

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Now that we have covered what exactly an arthropod is and why they (specifically the uniramians class) are so successful, we can focus on one specific organism and look deeper into how they evolved to be so successful in the environment they are in today. The organism that we are going to be focusing on is the dragonfly. The dragonfly has been around for 300 million years and has manage to stay alive and thrive in its environments. Back then an ancestor of dragonflies roamed the planet, its name was Meganeura. Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from approximately 300 million years ago, they are related to modern-day dragonflies. In this group one member known as M. permiana was first described be researchers in Kansas in 1937 as having a wingspan of over 2 feet or 0.6 meters long. It is still considered one of the largest insects ever to be alive on this planet. To better understand why prehistoric dragonflies were bigger than modern ones we must go back in time to take a look at what potentially happened and how the dragonfly evolved into what it is today. …show more content…

The wingless insects first appeared approximately 380 million years ago. The evolution of insects happened in four stages but for the dragonfly it appears in the second stage so we will only be looking into the first and second stages. The first stage is called the Apterygote stage, this term broken down basically means “without wings.” During this stage the simplest forms of insects were developed. They had no wings, or developed leg/ body parts. They also did not go through metamorphosis, instead they went through something known as ametabolous development. Ametabolous development basically means that the immature closely resembles the adult except for the presence of

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