Scarlet skimmer
The scarlet skimmer is a dragonfly as red as a strawberry. The boy is bright blood-red all over, even his eyes, with a thin black line down his back. The girl is a quieter olive brown.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its eyes are red on top and purple on the sides.
It lays its eggs in ponds, ditches, marshes and even rice fields.
It is a newcomer in America, where it now lives in Florida.
One kind of scarlet skimmer has no black line on its back at all.
Most asked questions about Scarlet skimmer
?Why is the scarlet skimmer red?
The boys are bright red to show off. The girls are olive brown.
?Is the scarlet skimmer dangerous?
No. Dragonflies cannot sting and are harmless to people.
?Where does the scarlet skimmer live?
It lives in east and south-east Asia, near ponds, marshes and rice fields, and also in Florida, Jamaica and Hawaii.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Crocothemis servilia
- Named by
- Drury, 1773
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Libellulidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Libellulidae
- Lives on
- Asia, North America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Ruddy marsh skimmer
Where the facts come from
- Scarlet skimmer (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 Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. CC0, 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 [email protected] and we will fix it.
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