One of my favorite things to watch is dragonflies! The species seen here is the Halloween Pennant dragonfly. It is so named for its orange and black (or brown) wings. They tend to be locally abundant, especially in areas like lakes, ponds, and marshes that have emergent vegetation. If not fluttering around, I often see them atop tall grasses and other vegetation along the edges of the water. Like other dragonflies they forage on smaller insects like mosquitoes (YEAH!), ants, flies, etc. The females lay eggs and once these eggs hatch the larvae are known as "nymphs". And interestingly, the longest stage of the dragonfly life cycle is the nymph stage! The nymphs forage on mosquito larvae and other invertebrates.
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