Große Königslibelle

The Emperor Dragonfly or Blue Emperor, Anax imperator, is a large and powerful species of hawker dragonfly of the family Aeshnidae, averaging 78 millimetres (3.1 in) in length. It is found mainly in Europe and nearby Africa and Asia. As it wanders widely it can also be encountered elsewhere.

A dragonfly is a winged insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera (from Greek ανισος anisos, "uneven" + πτερος pteros, "wings", due the hindwing being broader than the forewing). It is characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body. Dragonflies are similar to damselflies, but the adults can be differentiated by the fact that the wings of most dragonflies are held away from, and perpendicular to, the body when at rest. Dragonflies possess six legs (like any other insect), but most of them cannot walk well. Dragonflies are some of the fastest insects in the world.

Dragonflies are valuable predators that eat mosquitoes, and other small insects like flies, bees, ants, wasps, and very rarely butterflies. They are usually found around marshes, lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands because their larvae, known as "nymphs", are aquatic.

The name Palaeoptera has been traditionally applied to those primitive groups of winged insects (most of them extinct) that lacked the ability to fold the wings back over the abdomen as characterizes the Neoptera. The complexities of the wing-folding mechanism, as well as the mechanical operation of the wings in flight (indirect flight muscles), are such that it clearly indicates the Neoptera are a monophyletic lineage. The Diaphanopterodea, which are palaeopteran insects, had independently and uniquely evolved a different wing-folding mechanism.

The problem is that the plesiomorphic absence of wing-folding does not necessarily mean the Palaeoptera form a natural group – they may simply be an assemblage containing all insects, closely related or not, that "are not Neoptera", an example of a wastebasket taxon. As it stands, the relationship of the two living Paleopteran groups – Ephemeroptera (mayflies) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) – to the Neoptera has not been resolved yet; there are three competing main hypotheses with many variations. In two of these – those that treat the ephemeropteran or the odonatan lineage as closer to the Neoptera than to the other "palaeopterans" – the Paleoptera appear to be paraphyletic and thus an artificial grouping that is best abandoned.