What is Odonata?
{{Taxobox | image = Aeshna juncea hovering.jpg | image caption = ''Aeshna juncea'' hovering over a pond. | regnum = [[Animal]]ia | classis = [[Insecta]] | subclassis = [[Pterygota]] | ordo = '''Odonata''' }} [[File:Common blue damselfly02.jpg|thumb|Male blue ringtail (''Austrolestes annulosus''), a damselfly]] [[File:Meganeura monyi au Museum de Toulouse.jpg|thumb|The giant [[Upper Carboniferous]] dragonfly ancestor, ''[[Meganeura]] monyi'', had a wingspan of about {{convert|680|mm|in|abbr=on}}.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Biology of Dragonflies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J584AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA324 |publisher=CUP Archive |page=324 |id=GGKEY:0Z7A1R071DD |quote=No Dragonfly at present existing can compare with the immense ''Meganeura monyi'' of the Upper Carboniferous, whose expanse of wing was somewhere about twenty-seven inches.|date=2018-10-13 }}</ref> Museum of Toulouse]] The '''Odonata''' are an [[Order (biology)|order]] of flying [[insect]]s, the [[dragonflies]] and [[Damselfly|damselflies]]. They are sometimes listed as the '''Metapterygota'''. Like most of the flying insects ([[Diptera|flies]], [[beetle]]s, [[Lepidoptera]] and [[Hymenoptera]]), they evolved in the early [[Mesozoic]] era.<ref name=grimaldi>{{cite book |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evolutioninsects00grim/page/n189 175]–187 |title=Evolution of the Insects |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutioninsects00grim |last1=Grimaldi |first1=David |last2=Engel |first2=Michael S. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005|isbn=9780521821490 }}</ref> Their prototypes, the giant dragonflies of the [[Carboniferous]], 325 mya, are no longer put in the Odonata. These are now called [[Protodonata]] or Meganisoptera. The two suborders are easily distinguished: *Dragonflies: they are '''Anisoptera''' (= usually larger, eyes together & wings up or out at rest) *Damselflies: they are '''Zygoptera''' (= usually smaller, eyes apart & wings along body at rest) All Odonata have [[aquatic]] [[larva]]e called 'nymphs', and all of them, larvae an