"I was enjoying a nice day at Misquamicut State Beach until we endured a dragonfly apocalypse," says Stephanie Martin who captured the video below in Westerly, Rhode Island.
As this black cloud of dragonflies approached, she said it sounded like an airport.
"It kind of felt like an eternity, but I would say it probably lasted between 2 and 4 minutes and then once they were gone, they didn't come back for the rest of the day," she told WCVB.
While the scene had Biblical plague-like vibes, it was really just dragonflies doing their thing, says UMass-Amherst pollinator specialist at UMass Amherst.
"It was certainly a unique site, but it's actually a normal part of some dragonflies' lifecycle," she said. "We have some migratory dragonfly species here in the United States, some of which migrate from the Northeast down to the Gulf of Mexico or southeastern states, between late July and mid-October. The reason we saw such a large swarm is because they stopped to feed on other insects along the way, and they usually stop where there's fruitful resources."
Previously:
• Scientists created a new neural network based on dragonfly brains
• The largest insect that ever lived, the Dragonfly-like Meganeuropsis, had a wingspan of 28'
