Arthropoda: Insecta:Odonata

Introduction: Odonata, popularly known as dragonflies and damselflies are primarily associated with wetlands and surrounding landscape.The order Odonata is one of the ancient group of insects.Fossil evidences suggest that origin of this group dates back to Permian.The word "Odonata" is derived from the Greek word "odontos" meaning the toothed, which highlights the toothed nature of mandibles of this insect group.The extant dragonflies are divided into three suborders, the Zygoptera or damselflies, the Anisoptera or true dragonflies and the Anisozygoptera, which have some features of Zygoptera and Anisoptera.Zygopterans have a broad head with widely separated eyes and similar fore and hind wings.Most species rest with wings closed over the body.Anisoptera are on average larger and more robust than Zygoptera.Their hind wings are distinctly broader at their base than the fore wings and in most families the eyes touch on top of the head and at rest most species spread their wings perpendicular to the body. Global Diversity:Globally 6441 extant species in 46 families are known (Paulson et al., 2025), and distributed globally except in the poles. Diversity in India:In India a total 514 species belong to 159 genera, nineteen families, two Genera incertae sedis and three suborders are known.The Western Ghats, Western and Eastern Himalaya has maximum number of species.Nomenclature and classification follow Kalkman et al. (2020).State wise species diversity and endemism is provided in the table below.