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Sticker of Eastern billabongfly
Bug card No. 1463 of 4,939

Eastern billabongfly

Austroagrion watsoni
Name means: “a southern wild one, named in honour of Tony Watson”
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsDragonflies and damselfliesPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The eastern billabongfly is a small damselfly from Australia. The male has a bright blue body with black markings and blue rings on its thin black tail. It likes to sit on plants very close to the water.

Lives in
Northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea and New Caledonia, near ponds and lakes
Length
2.5 cm (0.98 in)
Top speed
about 8.5 km/h (5.3 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Damselflies have no sting, so you can just watch it.
What does it eat?
It catches small flying insects, like other damselflies.
For real!Photo of Eastern billabongfly
Picture by AusDigi. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Eastern billabongfly about 2.5 cm long (0.98 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 44 secondsmoves 94 times its own body length every second

How big is Eastern billabongfly compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is only about 25 millimetres long, about as long as a paper clip.

2

A billabong is an Australian word for a pond or waterhole, which is just the kind of place it loves.

3

The female is pale blue to greyish green and has a bright green stripe on her side.

4

It is a fast flyer.

5

Its scientific name honours Tony Watson, who studied Australian dragonflies.

you asked

Most asked questions about Eastern billabongfly

?How big is the eastern billabongfly?

It is small, only about 2.5 centimetres long.

?Where does the eastern billabongfly live?

In northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea and New Caledonia, near still or slow water.

?Is the eastern billabongfly dangerous?

No. Damselflies have no sting and are harmless.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Austroagrion watsoni
Named by
Lieftinck, 1982
Group
Dragonflies and damselflies
Family
Coenagrionidae
Classification
Insecta > Odonata > Coenagrionidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Eastern dart

Where the facts come from

  1. Eastern billabongfly (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by AusDigi. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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