Ever seen a dragonfly with 8 wings?

Only joking as this Orange-winged Dropwing Dragonly has 4 wings and the shadows made it to look like 8 wings (Trithemis kirbyi).
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Some lovely dragonflies, and these critters with their intricate colors and amazing flight abilities will forever fascinate me.

Our third power cut of the day forced me to go and sit peacefully in nature in order to get the beauties on camera that I will show you in here. We had to be back home at 3pm, as we had an appointment with a technician to come and change the installation of our inverter. But I will tell you more about it in the conclusion of this post, as for now come and have a look at these wonders of nature.

The top left wing of the dragonfly hung over the water and you can see that the shadow of the wing was gone.
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Here below I have 3 shots of a lovely female Broad Scarlet (Crocothemis erythraea). We call her the happy camper as she always looks like she is smiling and laughing. Such a cheerful one!
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And this is a male Red-veined Dropwing (Trithemis arteriosa).
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Now this little guy sat in the wind and it looked like a male Navy Dropwing (Trithemis furva). The next 2 photos will show you how the wind fluttered it around.
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Finally this lovely one looked like a Cape Skimmer (Orthetrum julia capicola).
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We bought an inverter that runs on lithium batteries in order to work on our PCs during the power cuts. At the beginning it worked well at a limit of 3 hours, but surprise, surprise, the Internet signal started to disappear during the power cuts. Apparently the batteries at the signal tower couldn't charge up fully due to the frequency of the power cuts.
Talking about batteries our new gate auto battery stopped working during the power cuts and it became a mission to open and close the gate manually.
Due to the crime situation it was also dangerous to stop the car and then to remove the locks from the gate motor in order to change the gate over to manual operation.
So the solution? Simple, link the inverter up to charge the gate motor during the power cuts and at the same time also link the garage door battery and the security system's battery up to the inverter. So 3 small batteries and the inverter can easily last for 6 hours to charge the batteries.

Sadly we cannot work during the power cuts on our PC without a signal on our PCs, but our safety is more important and now the batteries can all remain fully charged for the duration. One has many choices in life and to sit without power is one thing and quite another thing without protection.
So we did the right thing.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos of the dragonflies.

And That's All Friends.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon Powershot SX70HS Bridge camera.

Thank you kindly for supporting a post on behalf of @papilloncharity



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I really Thought it has 8 Wings... Looks so Beautiful and have a lot of childhood memories with dragonfly.

Beauty in the Nature. Lovely Captures mate!! !LUV it.

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Hi @papilloncharity, those insects are very interesting, I'm just researching about them to post some photos I took days ago. thanks for sharing 🙂.

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Thank you lady Elena and I hope that your research will identify the dragonflies in your photos.
Remember to include your area, as there are many species across the world that look similar.
I have a book of insects, but it only includes the dragonflies in our province.

!PIZZA

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Yes, there is a very large variety of them. Some are small, others are large. There are of different colors, those that pose with their wings open and those that do so with their wings closed, but for me they have not been easy to photograph. thank you so much @papilloncharity.

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Well, I am glad that you got some photos of the dragonflies and I can see that you still have a lot to learn about them. We have 6 dragonfly families that comprises 98 species here in South Africa.
The whole African continent has 850 species of dragonflies and they all have different characteristics.
Iam very interested your dragonflies, as maybe we also have some of them here.

This is a Navy Dropwing (Trithemis furva) that I took today.

Good luck with your research lady Elena!
!PIZZA

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Wow, you have many species of flying horses. Maybe there are more than here because Africa is a bigger and more virgin continent. How beautiful is that blue!.
My photos are not as good as yours, but I am sending you this one that I have not been able to identify.

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Thank you very much @papilloncharity

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Yes, you are correct as the size of the continent also assists the animals and the insects to grow to bigger sizes. No, your photos are excellent and no need to feel that my photos are better.
That is one beautiful dragonfly and I have never seen one in those colors, but the wings tell me that it might be a Dropwing. Pity that I cannot see the torso, or the body as that would make it easier to identify its specie name. A lovely photo my friend.

Have some !Pizza lady Elena.

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Your ability to accurately recognize species among so many that look alike is amazing. Ah, almost all the photos were taken from the same position, so the torso didn't appear in any of them, only a bit of the abdomen.
Thanks a million @papilloncharity for your valuable help 🤗.

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Thank you for the compliment lady Elena and thankfully I have had a few years of research behind my back. Did you know that the longest period of a dragonfly's life is spent under water. Up to 7 years as a Nymph and when they transform from nymph to dragonfly, they only live for short periods.
My pleasure to help and thank you for the appreciation.
!PIZZA

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Is incredible!. It means that they are more aquatic than terrestrial (or aerial). Because their adult life is when they are finishing and preparing to die.
One of the things I love is that they control fly and mosquito populations.
It seems that there is still much to know about them, for example when and where they travel on their migratory flights.
Thank you very much ❤️

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Oh yes, and they are also related to the pre-historic times. Olde World insects as they are called.
The dragonfly design was also used to build the first helicopters. Dragonflies are expert insect catchers due to their many flight pattern abilities and they like to catch insects in flight.
I am sure that you are going to discover a wide range of surprises about dragonflies.
Only a pleasure 😊 !LOLZ

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Well, if I liked them before, now I like them more 🙂

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Oh it really looks like that it has 8 wings. Upon reading the title my eyes got around and tried to thing if they really have 8 wings, and able to say in my mind, oh there's so many. But oh, it just a shadow. Nice capture.

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!LOLZ, that was my idea to have some fun. It really looked like 8 wings due to the shadows of the 4 wings. Just the sun playing tricks on our eyes.
Thank you for the reply and glad that you liked the post.
!LUV

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The angle on how you capture it, it really makes the difference. Thumbs up.

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Very nice, i need to try to find some this somer myself.. maybe at my Patents pond.

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Oh hahah, I was hooked by the title! 8 wings? hhhaha

But so glad I opened the post and saw all these gorgeous dragonflies 😍

Hope you are doing well @papilloncharity, have a nice upcoming week 👋

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That playful title certainly had some interesting results !LOLZ

I am also glad that you opened the post my friend.

Thank you and I am coping @mipiano and I hope that this will also be a good week for you 🙏

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look this dragon fly SO REEEDDDDDDD
omg i never see one this before, it doesn't even seem real very cool 😌

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Yep and it got its name due to its intense red colors. (Red-veined).
Glad that you liked it and yes, it is very real 😊

!BEER

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