Our little amber dragonfly

By Aaron Horrell

Usually we think of dragonflies as those that are about 3 inches long and sporting dominant colors of blue, green, white or brown. But there is a much smaller, orange-colored one that is easy to overlook or mistake for some other kind of insect.

The little dragonfly I show here is an eastern amberwing. It is about 3/4 of an inch long. On a hot, sunny, mid summer day I stuck a small aluminum rod in the bank at the edge of a pond. I hoped a dragonfly would land on it, and this one did.

You may find several eastern amberwings darting back and forth near the shoreline of a farm pond. They catch small insects out of the air and eat them. The beautiful little eastern amberwing is native to eastern and central United States.