This ability, plus a long slender body and large compound eyes, make them true aerial masters of the insect world. Their flight advantage enables dragonflies to generate large amounts of body heat. Thus, they burn 50 times as much energy in flight as the amount they use at rest. You may see adult dragonflies flying or resting on a plant in tandem as they mate. They aggressively defend their territories from a perch or by patrolling in patterns at various heights.
Dragonflies are highly beneficial predators that destroy large numbers of mosquitoes.
Their success as insects results, in part, from the large number of eggs they lay. Depending on the species, dragonflies lay hundreds of eggs by dropping them into the water and leaving them to hatch or by inserting eggs singly into a slit in the stem of a submerged plant. Nymphs are often covered by algal growth. They are voracious predators. Its skin splits along a midline of the thorax, and the adult dragonfly emerges.