Calico Pennant

The Calico Pennant is a small, vividly marked dragonfly in the skimmer family, widespread across the eastern half of the United States and southeastern Canada. Its common name refers to its habit of perching at the tips of grass stems and twigs with wings held slightly downward and forward, fluttering like a small flag or pennant in the breeze.

Both sexes display strong wing patterning with dark bands and colored patches near the base, along with a row of distinctive heart- or triangle-shaped spots down the top of the abdomen, making this one of the more easily recognized small skimmers.

• Males: red-orange wing patches near the base and red heart-shaped spots along the abdomen
• Females and immatures: yellow wing patches and yellow abdominal spots instead of red
• Both sexes show a dark brown to black band across each wing in addition to the colored basal patch
• Small, slender build compared to larger skimmers
• Similar Halloween Pennant is larger with more extensively amber-tinted wings and lacks the neat row of heart-shaped spots

Calico Pennants inhabit ponds, small lakes, and marshy wetlands with dense aquatic and emergent vegetation, which they use both for perching and egg-laying. The species ranges widely across the eastern United States and into southeastern Canada, generally west to the Great Plains. Adults are on the wing from late spring through summer.

This dragonfly commonly perches horizontally at the very tips of grass stems, sedges, or twigs, holding its wings out and slightly down in the characteristic pennant pose while scanning for prey and mates. Adults feed on small flying insects captured in flight, including gnats, mosquitoes, and other tiny insects that they snatch near the vegetation. The aquatic nymphs are predators among pond plants, preying on small invertebrates and contributing to the food web as prey themselves for fish, birds, and other predators.

Females lay eggs by tapping the water surface among vegetation, often while a paired male hovers nearby to guard her. Eggs hatch into aquatic nymphs that live among submerged plants, developing over roughly one year in most of their range while feeding on small aquatic invertebrates. After completing several molts, the mature nymph climbs a plant stem out of the water to emerge as a winged adult through incomplete metamorphosis. Adults live for a few weeks, during which they feed, establish perches, and reproduce before the cycle begins anew.