Episode 181 - Dragonflies

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2023

⏱️ 130 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dragonflies and damselflies are incredible insects. They are arguably the world’s most skilled fliers, arguably the world’s most successful predators, and arguably the best insects (so says David). Not only that, they and their ancient cousins have been abundant and successful aerial predators for over 300 million years. This episode, we discuss what sets these bugs apart from all the rest, we explore what’s known of their evolution from their surprisingly good fossil record, and of course we highlight their most famous extinct cousins: the giant griffenflies. In the news: croc habitats, tyrannosaur food, elephant trunks, and early mosquitos. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:04:30Main discussion, Part 1: 00:34:15Main discussion, Part 2: 01:13:15Patron question: 01:53:45 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more:http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here:https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ We’re an Audible Affiliate Partner! Use this link for a 30-day free trial to Audible: https://www.audibletrial.com/CommonDescent Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.9	Hello, Will.
0:21.0	Hello, David.
0:21.7	Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Common Descent podcast.
0:24.8	This is episode 181, the last episode of 2023.
0:29.1	Ooh, yep.
0:29.9	Very exciting.
0:30.6	We're going to wrap it up with a fun one.
0:32.1	This episode's topic is Dragonflies.
0:34.3	That is a fun one.
0:35.5	It's awesome.
0:36.5	This is my favorite group of insects.
0:38.5	I think they are so cool.
0:40.0	I think they're even cooler now having prepped for this episode.
0:44.3	We will be talking about dragonflies, their whole extended family, which means dragonflies and damsel flies.
0:50.8	The whole odonate lineage plus their ancient relatives, we'll talk about what
0:56.8	makes this group of insects distinctive, what makes them the way that they are, what are some
1:02.7	of the exciting adaptations and lifestyles that they exhibit, and then we will go into the past
1:08.2	to talk about some of the coolest and most successful insects
1:12.6	in earth history.
1:14.1	Yes.
1:14.8	Very fun group.
	...

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