Autumn meadowhawk
The autumn meadowhawk is a small dragonfly with bright yellow legs. Grown-up males have a red body, and the females are brownish red. It keeps flying late into autumn, long after most other dragonflies are gone.
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Fun facts
It flies later in the year than any other dragonfly in the American Northwest, sometimes into November.
Its baby, the naiad, sits still on the muddy pond bottom and waits for food to swim by.
The naiads climb out of the water at night to turn into grown-up dragonflies.
After mating, the pair fly together, and the female dips her tail into the water to lay eggs.
Hungry fish sometimes follow the egg-laying pairs and gobble them up.
Most asked questions about Autumn meadowhawk
?What does the autumn meadowhawk eat?
Small flying insects, especially mosquitoes, flies and flying ants.
?How big is the autumn meadowhawk?
It is a small dragonfly, about 30 to 35 millimetres long.
?When can you see autumn meadowhawks?
From late summer to late autumn, from about August until October or even November.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Sympetrum vicinum
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Libellulidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Libellulidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Yellow-legged meadowhawk
Where the facts come from
- Sympetrum vicinum (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Cody Hough. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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