Did you know the largest insect to ever live was a dragonfly with a wingspan of 2.5 feet (75 cm)?
This extinct insect, called Meganeuropsis permiana, lived during the Permian period, about 290 million years ago, in the area we now think of as the Midwest United States. The first high-quality fossil of one was found in 1939 in Elmo, Kansas. That happens to be 50 miles (80 km) from where I grew up (I know, a useless tidbit of information). You may know that today's dragonflies are predators, feeding on other insects like mosquitoes. Meganeuropsis was also a predator, both in the larva stage and as a flying adult. But it could handle much larger prey, including small reptiles and amphibians. The only known predator of Meganeuropsis was the giant amphibian called Proterogyrinus, which was eight feet (2.5 m) long. Below is an accurate model of Meganeuropsis.
3 Comments
1/27/2023 07:24:44 pm
Would love to buy one of these life size prehistoric dragonfly replica models. Been looking all over and can't find.
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Michael sharp
6/22/2023 05:10:32 am
Hi this may sound messed up to you but back in the year 1996 in summer in the uk I experienced an unforgettable event in which a huge flying dragon fly unknown to the name came hovering down some bushes it was about 2ft long clear wings about a foot in wingspan it j had turquoise patches eyes and a tongue with a slit in it it came towards me and my friend we were cleaning some windows it was really hot my friend didnt know what to do it was like we was in a sinbad movie it was all so real well it was but it just felt like it was gonna attack us so my friend grabbed his metal bar and struck it to this flying dragon fly to its head it fell to the floor and started to wriggle all over making this hover noise with it’s wings but then after a struggle we heard this clock sound as if the dragon fly wiggled it’s head back to its body and then started again to fly towards us it was scary at this point we legged it inside but when came out ten mins later it had gone, Iv been searching the internet for years looking for other sightings but not anything also when I was a kid I found a giant fossil in the beach in Robin Hood bay in Scarborough the uk it was massive I was only a child then but when a kid sees Jurassic park he believes anything is possible I knows it’s a film but oh well Iv told this event for 20 years now and still no one believes me not even my closest family, anyway I just thought I’d share this with you if only I could have some sort of evidence to prove I wasn’t making it up. Ps I’m not mad
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Urmom
4/2/2024 05:29:34 pm
UwU, Meganeuropsis is a dragonfly! 👉🏼👈🏼 🍑👏🏼 😘
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