Orange-spotted emerald

The orange-spotted emerald is a shiny dragonfly with bright green eyes and a bronze-green body. Along its tail it has a row of little yellow and orange spots, and that is how it got its name. It lives along calm, shady rivers in western and southern Europe.

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Fun facts
It is the only species in its whole genus. It has no close sisters.
Its babies live in tree roots that hang into the river water.
It used to live in England, but it disappeared there in the last century because the rivers became dirty.
It has also vanished from the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg.
Crayfish brought in from other countries like the same tree roots, and in one river they may have pushed it out.
Most asked questions about Orange-spotted emerald
?Where does the orange-spotted emerald live?
In western and southern Europe, from Spain and Portugal to Italy, along slow rivers with trees on the banks.
?Why is it called orange-spotted?
Because it has a row of yellow and orange spots along the top of its tail.
?How big is the orange-spotted emerald?
It is about 5 centimetres long, a medium-sized dragonfly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Oxygastra curtisii
- Named by
- Dale, 1834
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Idomacromiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Idomacromiidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Orange-spotted emerald (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 Régis KRIEG-JACQUIER RKJ. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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