Double-striped bluet
Enallagma basidens
The double-striped bluet is a slim little damselfly. On each shoulder it has a black stripe that is split in two by a thin blue line. No other damselfly has a shoulder stripe quite like it.
Lives in
North America, from southern Canada through the United States to Mexico
Length
2.1 to 2.8 cm (0.83 to 1.1 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot sting and does not bite people.
What does it eat?
It catches tiny flying insects to eat.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 5 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 42 seconds⚡moves 88 times its own body length every second
How big is Double-striped bluet compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Double-striped bluet about 8.9 km/h (5.5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Grown up males have a tail striped in black and blue.
2
Females and young ones are tan, olive or brown, but they have the same split shoulder stripe.
3
It lives mostly beside lakes and ponds, and sometimes by slow streams.
you asked
Most asked questions about Double-striped bluet
?How can you tell a double-striped bluet?
Look at its shoulders. The black stripe there is split in two by a thin blue line.
?Where does the double-striped bluet live?
By lakes and ponds in Mexico, the United States and southern Canada.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Enallagma basidens
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Coenagrionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Coenagrionidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Double-striped bluet (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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