... likely to resemble 300-million-year-old flying machine: The use of drones has exploded in recent years - for security, military, delivery, law enforcement, filming, and more recently health screening purposes - but in comparison to the dragonfly and other flying insects they are crude and guzzle energy.
The UniSA team modelled the dragonfly's unique body shape and aerodynamic properties to understand why they remain the ultimate flying machine.
Because intact dragonflies are notoriously difficult to capture, the researchers developed an optical technique to photograph the wing geometry of 75 different dragonfly (Odonata) species from glass display cases in museum collections.
In a world first experiment, they reconstructed 3D images of the wings, comparing differences between the species.
