Anax BritannicaIn the summer of 2013 I was researching the history of Britain's secret services in the Second World War for a magazine article. In particular, as a biologist, I was interested in the deployment of animals in the war effort. But among the discussions of carrier pigeons used to convey encrypted messages and dogs accompanying troops to act as guards and bloodhounds, I stumbled upon something truly remarkable: brief mention of a previously unknown - and huge - species of dragonfly.
At first I assumed the paper in question had simply been misfiled. But then I found a fuller report which appeared to corroborate the story. The report referred to the species as Anax britannica, described as “similar to, although larger than, Anax imperator, the Emperor Dragonfly”. While imperator
