If there were a beauty contest in the animal kingdom, then of course the peacock, a vain oaf, would step into the limelight first, although apart from being beautiful it doesn’t really have much to offer. Other types such as the pot-bellied pig, the camel or the fried jellyfish are not suitable for public appearances, if only because of their offending species names. The “flat belly” also falls into this category, a dragonfly, so called because it has a broad, flattened and rather clumsy looking abdomen, which probably only flat-bellied women in love can find attractive.
Nevertheless, for a show element in such an animal challenge, there would be no one better than him, the flat belly would rock the event like no one before him. The eagle may be more majestic, but the plump-bottomed dragonfly is the true queen of the skies, and it’s about time she got the credit she deserves. The Heathland Association of the North of Munich has now proclaimed the flat-bellied “Heidling of the Month May 2022” and in a rapturous laudatory speech praised the skills of the up to 48 millimeter large flying star, which has also found a home in the Fröttmaninger Heide on shallow waters with little vegetation.
Its take-off speed puts every starfighter to shame, it goes from zero to one hundred in half a second, but is then slowed down by air resistance to 40 to 50 kilometers per hour. And when it comes to agility, despite his clumsy butt, he’ll easily put any other flying object in his pocket. The dragonfly can move its two pairs of wings independently of each other and thus perform wild hooks in the air or, if it feels like it, stand still in mid-flight like a helicopter. As if that weren’t enough, the flat stomach can also go into reverse gear. Of course, the aircraft industry has long since copied all the technical refinements of the fast-moving dragonfly, apart from one special aerial number: the pairing of flat-bellied and flat-bellied females takes place in flight and lasts less than 30 seconds.