Question: How has the Emperor Dragonfly been able to out live so many other organisms

Emperor Dragonfly answered on 21 Nov 2017:

That is a really good question – and one I often wonder when I watch them… When they evolved there were not that many flying insects, but they were obviously the top predators. Since then many other types of insects have taken to the air – bees and wasps, true flies (like house flies), butterfies and moths, but there was always a dragonfly there to make a meal of them! So I think the simplest answer is that evolution built a superb aerial predator, over 300 million years ago, and hasn’t ever been able to improve on it – so we get to watch “living fossils” flying over our ponds and rivers each summer!