Fuzzy Dragonfly?

First off “Fuzzy Dragonfly” would be a great name for a band or some sort of fancy drink.

The Wikipedia Feature Photo of the Day is always interesting. Today it is a lovely close-up of a dragonfly.

Beautiful and alien. Great photo.

Why the heck does the beast have hair? Is it hair? If not, what is it?

Damsels and Dragons:

There are likely other reasons for the fuzz as well.

Thank you. I presumed that only mammals had hair.

I guess you’ve never seen a bumblebee. :slight_smile:

Or a frog.

Or gypsy moth caterpillars

Interestingly, the Wiki article on bumbleees refers to the “hairlike substance called pile,” yet other articles (on Wiki and elsewhere) simply refer to the “hair” in the legs or bodies of other insects.

We might need a decision from a genuine entemologist.

It was worth all the abuse just to read the Google Ads.

It’s really just a matter of definition. In its broadest sense, “hair” can mean any kind of filamentous extension of the epidermis of an organism, whether plant (e.g. root hairs) or animal (or for that matter, can refer even an extension of a single cell).

In its narrowest definition, however, “hair” refers just to the mammalian hair, which is composed of keratin and which grows from specialized follicles in the skin. Insect “hair,” in contrast, is composed of chitin like the rest of the exoskeleton. Since it is different in composition and structure from mammalian hair, some references prefer to call it “hairlike” rather than true hair.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bug.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wore a rug.

:slight_smile: