Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Dragonfly
A large, agile aerial predator with an elongated body, enormous compound eyes, and two pairs of strong wings held straight out to the sides at rest, often seen patrolling over water in search of prey.
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Dragonfly Nymph
A stocky, camouflaged underwater predator that spends months or years stalking prey along the pond bottom before transforming into an aerial dragonfly.
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Emperor Dragonfly
One of Europe's largest and most powerful dragonflies, a fast, high-flying hunter with a bright sky-blue abdomen in males and a commanding, tireless patrol over open water.
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Common Whitetail Dragonfly
A stocky pond-side dragonfly whose mature males sport a broad, chalky white abdomen that flashes conspicuously against boldly banded wings.
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Blue Dasher Dragonfly
A small, common dragonfly whose mature males combine a powdery blue abdomen with brilliant green eyes, often seen perched horizontally with its tail raised skyward.
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Green Darner Dragonfly
One of the largest and most widespread dragonflies in North America, its green thorax and target-marked face make it unmistakable as it patrols open water on powerful wings.
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Widow Skimmer
A medium-sized dragonfly named for the broad, dark mourning-veil-like patches at the base of its wings, seen perched on shoreline vegetation across much of North America.
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Slaty Skimmer
A mature male Slaty Skimmer is powder-blue-gray from head to tail with jet-black wing tips, giving it a slate-colored, almost monochrome look as it patrols pond edges.
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Common Clubtail
This river-loving dragonfly gets its name from the noticeably widened, club-shaped tip of its abdomen, which it displays as it rests on sunlit waterside vegetation.
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Common Green Darner
A large green-and-blue dragonfly and the official state insect of Washington, best known among dragonfly watchers for an annual migration that spans multiple generations.
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Owlfly
An acrobatic, dragonfly-mimicking predator instantly given away by its long, clubbed antennae, a feature no true dragonfly ever has.
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Eastern Pondhawk
A bold, ground-perching dragonfly whose bright green females and powdery blue males look almost like different species, and which readily preys on other dragonflies.
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Common Sanddragon
A sand-colored clubtail dragonfly that perches flat on bare, sunlit riverbank sand, nearly vanishing against the grains around it.
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Ruby Meadowhawk
A small, brilliant-red dragonfly of late summer meadows, so intensely colored that mature males seem to glow when perched low in the grass.
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Four-spotted Skimmer
A brown, sturdily built dragonfly marked with a single dark spot on each wing, this holarctic species is famous for occasional mass emergences and long-distance swarming flights.
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Wandering Glider
One of the most widely traveled insects on Earth, this golden dragonfly rides high-altitude winds across oceans and continents, rarely landing as it forages endlessly on the wing.
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Broad-Bodied Chaser
A stout, flat-bodied dragonfly that is often the first to colonise a new garden pond, with males showing a powdery pale blue abdomen and females a warm golden-brown one.
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Halloween Pennant
With broad orange-amber wings banded in dark brown, this dragonfly perches conspicuously atop tall grass stems, swaying like a small flag in the breeze.
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Roseate Skimmer
A vivid pink-violet dragonfly of southern wetlands, the mature male's rose-pruinose body makes it one of the most striking skimmers found around ponds and canals.
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Flame Skimmer
A blazing orange-red dragonfly of western waterways, the Flame Skimmer perches boldly on sunlit rocks and twigs, its amber-tinted wings glowing like embers in flight.
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Damselfly
A slender, delicate relative of the dragonfly with widely spaced eyes and slim wings that fold together over its back at rest, often seen fluttering weakly among reeds and grasses at the water's edge.
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Black Saddlebags
A large, nearly all-black dragonfly with a bold dark patch draped across the base of each hindwing, patrolling high over ponds and open ground like a small kite.
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Comet Darner
One of North America's largest and fastest dragonflies, blazing across open water with a fiery red abdomen that gives it its cometary name.
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Prince Baskettail
One of the largest baskettail dragonflies, the Prince Baskettail is often seen tirelessly patrolling back and forth over water and open fields, rarely pausing to land.
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