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Photos: Dragon's lair

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The wings of a dragonfly are backlit as it rests on a flower on Wisconsin Point Thursday afternoon, August 6. (Jed Carlson / jcarlson@superiortelegram.com)

Dragonflies could be found all around Wisconsin Point recently.

Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air.

If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying. They catch their insect prey by grabbing it with their feet. They’re so efficient in their hunting that, in one Harvard University study , the dragonflies caught 90 to 95% of the prey released into their enclosure.

Dragonflies are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day.

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A dragonfly rests on a flower on Wisconsin Point Thursday, Aug. 6. Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them. (Jed Carlson / jcarlson@superiortelegram.com)

Jed Carlson joined the Superior Telegram in February 2001 as a photographer. He grew up in Willmar, Minnesota. He graduated from Ridgewater Community College in Willmar, then from Minnesota State Moorhead with a major in mass communications with an emphasis in photojournalism.
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