Griffinflies??? Read on ...
Winter is upon us, so not much to do in terms of butterflies, damselflies and dragonflies out there ... Let's travel in our minds to other times!
If you're interested in dragonflies, you'll likely be aware of giant 'dragonflies' which lived around 300 million years ago and went extinct at the end of the Permian. The largest of these had a wingspan of something like 70cm; as large as a crow!
Let's first make clear that these fantastic beasts were not dragonflies, as is so often said in popular sources, and they were also not the ancestors of modern dragonflies. They belonged to the order Meganisoptera, whereas modern-day dragonflies (and damselflies) belong to a different order, Odonata.
Meganisoptera are all long extinct, and paleantologists refer to them as 'griffinflies', to avoid confusion with 'dragonflies'. The two orders are related to each other, though. The exact relationships between Meganisoptera, Odonata and other extinct early insect orders is still under debate, and this is not the place to discuss that in detail. But to get a bit of a feel, consider griffinflies and dragonflies to be something like cousins. Not all griffinflies were giants, by the way. Meganeuropsis permiana was one of the largest known species, with an estimated wing span of just over 70cm, whereas other species were similar in size to large modern-day dragonflies.
Putting the griffinfly - dragonfly issue aside, wouldn't it be great to step into a time machine, go back 300 million years (give or take a few tens of million years), and see these giants fly around? If I had such a piece of kit, you can be assured I'd post on having seen them, even if they technically don't fit under 'butter', 'damsels' or 'dragons'!
Unfortunately, a time machine allowing you to take such a trip doesn't exist (yet?), and the next best thing at the moment is this video I found, offering us a computer-animated glimpse of what they may have looked like in real life. Enjoy!
