Ji'an News Network News On November 2, Liu Qingming of the School of Life Sciences of Sun Yat-sen University wrote to reporters, reflecting that he accidentally found the world's smallest dragonfly - the pygmy red dragonfly when he was playing in the Qingyuan Mountain Scenic Area in early August, and wanted to introduce the species found in Luling to his fathers and fellow villagers in a scientific way.
Liu Qingming, a native of Yonghe, Ji'an County, graduated from Ji'an County High School in 2014 and was admitted to the School of Life Sciences of Sun Yat-sen University, where he studied biology for a master's degree, majoring in zoology, mainly engaged in the study and research of insects, and was very interested in butterflies and dragonflies. In 2019, he participated in the biodiversity survey project of Luling Ganjiang National Wetland Park, responsible for the insect part. As a researcher engaged in biological sciences, he has a deeper understanding and cognition of all natural things, and has a lofty reverence and love for natural life. At the beginning of August, Liu Qingming returned to his hometown and once again ran to the long-awaited Qingyuan Mountain Scenic Area to enjoy the fun of the mountains. In a patch of grass at the foot of Qingyuan Mountain, a sudden flash of bright red locked his gaze. With his professional sensitivity, he immediately identified that the dragonfly was the world's smallest dragonfly pygmy red dragonfly, and he was so excited that he immediately took a picture with his camera.
The dwarf red dragonfly belongs to the insect family Dragonfly family Red Dragonfly genus, is the smallest form of the dragonfly family found in humans, known as the dwarf species. Males mature 17 mm long, females 16 mm, and have a wingspan of about 30 mm. The pygmy red dragonfly has large eyes, the male is bright red throughout, the feet are black and slender; the female is yellow-brown, there are two columns of white spots on the sides of the chest and abdomen, the wings are sparse, the four wings are transparent, and there are yellow-brown or reddish-brown patches at the base, which are very beautiful in the sun. Adult insects fly from April to September, and are active in wetlands, ponds, and rice fields where aquatic plants are lush below 1500 m above sea level.
The pygmy red dragonfly has a weak ability to fly, even if it feels threatened, it only flies within two or three meters, and is more persistent about the previously selected stop point, flying around and stopping back to the same place. This mini dragonfly is found in Southern and Eastern China, but is relatively rare. Due to the impact of development and construction in various places, the number of pygmy red dragonflies with fragile lives has dropped sharply, and it is now rarely seen in many places. There is no picture record of the pygmy red dragonfly in the "Chinese Insect Ecology Atlas".
Liu Qingming said that because the pygmy red dragonfly prefers clean and pollution-free wetlands as a habitat, it is also an iconic insect that shows the state of the ecological environment. Its distribution, density and quantity in a place can measure the quality of the natural ecological environment in this area. The figure of the dwarf red dragonfly was found in the Qingyuan Mountain Scenic Area not far from the central urban area, indicating that the ecology of the area is good and of great significance to biodiversity research.
Jinggangshan Daily all-media reporter Zhang Jianhua
![What is the smallest dragonfly in the world Dwarf red dragonfly (less than 2 cm in length)[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)