They hover over ponds and pools and inhabit the banks of rivers and streams. With their dazzling metallic colours and unique ways of flying they are truly jewels of the air.
This film presents dragonflies as they have never been seen before. Fascinating close up shots take us into the world of these insects, which have lived on earth since the age of the dinosaurs.
Spectacular super slow motion shots and elaborate computer animation uncover, for the first time, how dragonflies capture their prey at lightning speed while flying and how they mate in the air. Underwater photography reveals the development of the predatory dragonfly larvae while time lapse sequences show the emergence of the fully grown insect.
However these amazingly colourful flying acrobats are in danger.
The dragonfly's preferred habitat in and around water is rapidly diminishing, which, in Europe alone, has pushed around 80 species to the brink of extinction.