Hello everyone and welcome back to our look at some of the most interesting insects we have around!  At least I think so anyway.  I just never realized how many different varieties of dragonflies we had.  And, some of the dragonflies found up here in the north can be found all over the North American continent and even in other parts of the world.  That is really fascinating. 

The dragonfly above is the white-tail skimmer, a fairly large and easy to spot dragonfly. This one is the male, the female is more brown and generally looks quite different than the male.  The male has a whitish powder on it’s abdomen called “pruinosity”.  They can be found all over the continent and prefer quiet water such as ponds, lakes and marshes.  The female lays the eggs in water and the hatching juveniles are called naiads.  They will live anywhere from a few months to years before coming out as full adults.  These dragonflies prefer small insects feeding mainly on mosquitoes and gnats.

And next week we will take a closer look at the above dragonfly variety.

And, as mentioned previously, many of our dragonfly species migrate to warmer places in the fall in large groups called “swarms”.  That means that they will soon be coming back for another summer of flying about and fascinating us with their acrobatics and dazzling colors.  I hope you have enjoyed this week’s look at fascinating dragonflies.  I hope your week is great and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.