Yesterday, I seemed to be particularly fascinated by insect eyes and did a posting on a fly, whose compound eyes were pretty amazing. However, dragonflies have the largest compound eyes of any insect and I was thrilled to be able to capture this face-to-face shot of a Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), peering right at me over the edge of a leaf.
A dragonfly’s eyes can have as many as 30,000 facets, known as ommatidia, that contain light-sensitive proteins, according to an article in ScienceBlogs. Although, humans also have these kind of proteins, called opsins, we have only three (red, green, and blue), whereas a dragonfly has four or five, giving it the capability to see colors beyond human visual capabilities. A dragonfly’s eyes also wrap around its head, giving it an incredible field of view. For more information and a more scientific explanation, check out a posting entitled “Super-predators” that Sue did last June in her Backyard Biology blog.
I took this shot in a wooded grassy area adjacent to a pond. It seems that the Common Whitetail dragonflies are hanging out there early in the season and not too many of them are patrolling over the water, as I commonly saw them do last summer. The fact that the dragonfly was not perched on a branch coming out of the water proved to and advantage as I was able to approach pretty closely to it in order to take this shot.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Drgaonfly eyes are grey subjects, especially since every situation brings out a different pattern and colour in the eyes.
They most definitely are wonderful–you never quite know what you will get.
They are so weird, almost creepy.
Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for sharing this stuff, Mike.
You’re welcome. Insects fascinate me and it’s pretty cool to take a close-up look at them with a macro lens. (It’s getting tougher for me to spot birds now that the leaves are back on the trees).
It’s likely that it has only very recently emerged into the adult form from the aquatic nymph, and they are so wonderfully calm and patient at this stage. How rewarding it is to be able to work with them like this!
[…] « Dragonfly eyes […]
Hard to sneak up on them when their eyes can see backwards. It was nice of this one to sneak up on you.
Just found a nice entomology blog which has been kept for 10 years by a professor at my university (UMD). http://bugoftheweek.squarespace.com/
Thanks for sharing the link–I’ll definitely check it out.
Wow!