Mature odonates cannibalisng tenerals
The cannibalism cases in odonates where the mature individuals predating on teneral individuals have only been observed in Zygoptera, 20 instances (29.7%) (Supplementary Table 4; Fig. 2). We found that a higher proportion of teneral males were prey (eight instances) than the teneral females (with four cases). Our findings support Corbet’s (1999) observation that, in Zygoptera mature adults predate mostly on tenerals males. Teneral cannibalism in odonates most likely occurs because of recognition error or could be opportunistic as the tenerals are easy prey (Corbet 1999).