"Wandering gliders are descended from some of the earliest known insects – and breed as one global population"
"All hail the wandering glider, a citizen of the globe, an insect for all of us.
Whenever we see a dragonfly zipping through the airspace and devouring tiny insects with aplomb, we can appreciate they are so timelessly effective that they have barely needed to tweak their way of life in 200m years. Odonates are directly descended from some of the earliest winged insects, known as griffin flies, which evolved around 317m years ago.
And if you were a mobile predator who had evolved when the continents were completely different to the world we know today, why would you settle down in a single country?
Wherever we live in the world, we can probably glance up and see one of these sleek, darting dragonflies, which have transparent wings and a yellow or golden-coloured thorax marked with a dark line."
Patrick Barkham reports for the Guardian August 8, 2026.
SEE ALSO:
"Butterflies Take Flight in Face of Climate Change and Extreme Weather" (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/science/butterflies-climate-change-ex...
