[Odonata-l] (no subject)

[david.goddard8@ntlworld.com]

Hello Kurt and Leah,
                    A Dragonfly has a very primitive nervous system and headless dragonflies have also been found here in England, they will live for another 4 or 5 days before they die of starvation. I have personally see two dragonflies. I am not at all sure if this is resricted to just dragonflies or to insects in general.

There is a paper publishes in the Journal of the British dragonfly society regarding this topic

RADFORD, A. P. Headless 'life' of female Southern Hawker Aeshna cyanea (Müller). 10 (2): 37

I hope that this helps.

Regards
David (BDS Librarian / Archivist)

> 
> From: "Kurt Mead" <mndfly at cpinternet.com>
> Date: 2007/06/24 Sun PM 07:11:10 BST
> To: <odonata-l at listhost.ups.edu>
> CC: leah at godtland.com
> Subject: [Odonata-l] (no subject)
> 
> I got this email from a naturalist working at Quarry Hill Nature Center in
> Rochester, MN.  Any comments about what she and her students have been
> observing?
> 
>  
> 
> Kurt Mead
> 
>  
> 
> hi, kurt.  it's been a while since i've e-mailed you... it's been nice to be
> able to go out and actually catch dragonflies as opposed to waiting for the
> weather to be warm enough.  anyway, i have another question for you.
> 
>  
> 
> yesterday i was out with a couple 9th grade volunteers, catching dragonflies
> to try to feed by hand (what an amazing experience!) and we came across a
> dragonfly that was missing a head.  the abdomen, wings, and thorax are
> complete, but where the head should be is just a little stump, i'm assuming
> where the head usually attaches.  other than not flying around much and
> obviously not being able to eat, it has been crawling up things, fluttering
> its wings every so often, and staying quite active despite its loss of major
> functioning organs.  i tried looking up online things that have to do with
> headless insects, insects & their lack of blood pressure, etc. with little
> luck.  i'm just curious if you know anything about how it's staying alive.
> (assuming it was headless right before we caught it, it has been headless
> for almost 24 hours so far.) any resources on that?  or on how fast
> dragonfly metabolism is... how often do they have to eat?  also, it keeps
> pumping its left front leg...
> 
> is that to keep the blood pumping throughout its body (sans head)?  (the
> naturalist in me really wants to say 'it's still alive and kicking!'...) and
> could this 'alive and headless' syndrome be unique to dragonflies (and
> cockroaches, i guess) or is this a common occurrence among insects?  i
> haven't the heart to try it out on anything intentionally.
> 
>  
> 
> well, i'd appreciate any enlightenment you can give me on the topic.  it's
> been an interesting addition to campers' experiences this week, especially
> for the nature photography camp.
> 
>  
> 
> i've been out catching dragonflies here at quarry hill at least a couple
> times a week... it's been interesting to see species i've never seen in
> hennepin county.  happy hunting!
> 
> -leah godtland
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 

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