Deep in Guyana's rainforest, on South America's northern edge, Dr. Jessica Ware is searching for aerial predators.

When we think about diversity, there's about the same number of species of dragonflies and damselflies as there are all of mammals.

A few years ago, over 40 new species of dragonfly were identified here.

And Jessica knows it's just a hint of what's out there.

This is a good area to get giant helicopter damselflies.

They'll usually perch just above our eyeline.

She's hoping to find species to help fill in the dragonfly tree of life.

A chart of Dragonfly Evolution.

Throughout history.

People have been trying to figure out how dragonflies are related to each other for hundreds of years.

You can make a tree or a phylogeny with appearance data, which could be from external or internal characters.

You can also use genetic information, which is what we often turn to now.

[slow calm music] When we go to Guyana, We're looking to sample biodiversity, but then also the taxa that we find we sequence.

This also goes to part of this tree of life of dragonflies, and we often find new species.

I believe she has caught urases.

Urases are, this is a male.

You always can kind of tell, this one has black tips on the tips of its wings, which are very noticeable.

That's a good catch, Susan.

Thank you.

The specimens they collect will help piece together how these highly efficient survivors evolved and dispersed around the planet.

We're describing species of insects at a pretty fast rate, and for dragonflies, there's several handfuls of dragonflies that are described every year.

And we think that we're not close to finding all of the dragonflies that are out there.

I got a libellula, the skimmers.

You can tell this is a little bit of an older guy because its wings have tears on them.

The dragonfly's success began before the time of the dinosaurs, when it first developed its signature wings.

Dragonflies are masters of aviation.

They're incredible fliers.

They're one of the earliest evolving terrestrial insects.

We know from the fossil record that the first flight probably was around 400 million years ago, and it probably looked something like a dragonfly.

[slow upbeat music] A dragonfly's four wings can maneuver independently.

With the most developed wing muscles in the insect world, they can speed through the air at up to 25 miles per hour.

Their iridescent colors help with regulating body temperature and communication with potential mates.

It's unlikely any color signaling goes undetected.

Nearly 80% of their brains are dedicated to vision.

Their head is basically just two giant eyes.

And then the eyes can rotate like this.

And that way they can see a really wide range.

They're able to see predators, they're able to see prey.

While a dragonfly's eyes are nearly connected, The damselfy's are widely separated, possibly giving greater awareness of prey to the side and rear.

But dragonflies don't just use their enormous eyes to find prey.

They're also looking for love.

[wing flapping] And mating is not a simple affair.

For starters, males have two penises.

The male and female reproductive parts come together, and then the secondary penis actually is used to scrape out the previous male's sperm or displace it.

When you see males and females come together, it looks kind of heart shaped.

It's like a, we call it the copulatory wheel, and they're together for some time.

This delicate dance can last for several hours.

Finally, the female lays her eggs in or near the water, which her larvae need to survive over her short lifetime of a few weeks, she can lay thousands of eggs.

An essential food source for fish, frogs and other aquatic creatures.

After a week long gestation, the hatchlings, called nymphs, emerge looking nothing like their parents and begin their training as voracious predators, underwater [slow calm music] Most dragonfly nymphs, as we call them, are larvae.

They burrow in the sand or the rocks that are at the bottom of the water.

Their mouthparts consist of like a hinged structure, and it shoots out like that.

[slow dramatic music] They have these little claws here.

They grab the prey item and then bring it back to their mouth.

And in order to power that jaw, they actually take in water through their rear end and constrict the water.

And that pressure then shoots their jaw out.

It's almost alien-like, how it extends.

It looks like a super modified elbow that's able to shoot out from underneath their jaw and grab a prey and bring it back in so quickly that the prey has no idea what just happened.

A dragonfly nymph will spend up to five years as an underwater hunter.

It'll molt as many as 12 times before preparing for its final transformation.

Once they're ready to emerge as an adult, it'll crawl its way out from the water.

They'll get to a stalk somewhere high up.

It then rips its cuticle open and is able to shed that last bit of its exoskeleton and emerge as this new adult.

[slow upbeat music] Within minutes, it takes its ravenous appetite and lethal hunting skills from the water to the sky.

It's incredible because these insects have to breathe underwater, see underwater, and deal with all these underwater challenges.

And as adults, they'll have to see in air, fly in the air.

It's an incredible transition.

Imagine a bird that completed its development as a fish unwater.

It's incredible.

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