Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

Description:

This is the largest, most widely distributed, and perhaps most colorful small pennant species in the region. Its common name is descriptive because of its distinctive orange and brown or black wings. The face is yellowish or olivaceous, becoming darker with age and red in males. The thorax is yellowish-green with a dark middorsal stripe and narrow lateral stripes on the sutures. This is the only species with completely yellowish-orange wings marked with broad dark brown or black stripes and a red pterostigma. The abdomen is slender with pale yellow dorsal spots on segments 3-7 that become red with age. Size: length: 30-42 mm; abdomen: 20-30 mm; hindwing: 27-35 mm.

Habitat:

Lakes, ponds, borrow pits and marshes with emergent vegetation. This one was photographed at the Silver Bluff Audubon Center near Jackson, SC.

Notes:

This species may be locally abundant. It forages from atop tall grasses, weeds and stems in open fields some distance from the water. It perches uniquely, with the fore- and hindwings in different planes. The forewings are held somewhat vertically and the hindwings horizontally.