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Sticker of Marsh bluet
Bug card No. 2769 of 4,939

Marsh bluet

Enallagma ebrium
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsDragonflies and damselfliesPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The marsh bluet is a small, thin damselfly. The male is bright blue with black stripes and has big dark eyes. The female is tan or blue-green with black. It flies slowly and darts in and out between water plants.

Lives in
Canada and the northern United States, at ponds, lakes and marshes
Length
2.5 to 3.4 cm (0.98 to 1.3 in)
Top speed
about 9.9 km/h (6.2 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot sting and does not bother people.
What does it eat?
It catches small soft flying insects such as mosquitoes, flies and little moths, and sometimes picks aphids off plants. Its young eat mosquito larvae under water.
For real!Photo of Marsh bluet
Picture by D. Gordon E. Robertson. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Marsh bluet about 3.4 cm long (1.3 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 6 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 38 secondsmoves 81 times its own body length every second

How big is Marsh bluet compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its babies, called naiads, live under water and are only about 2 centimetres long.

2

To lay her eggs, the female can climb down as deep as about 30 centimetres under the water.

3

Males choose a good spot by the water and guard it as their own.

4

When it rests, it holds its wings together over its back.

5

It flies from early June to early September and can be very common at marshes in midsummer.

you asked

Most asked questions about Marsh bluet

?Is the marsh bluet dangerous?

No. It cannot sting and it does not bite people. It is a helper, because it eats mosquitoes.

?What does a marsh bluet eat?

Small flying insects like mosquitoes, flies and little moths. Its young eat mosquito larvae under water.

?How big is a marsh bluet?

About 2.5 to 3.4 centimetres long, a bit longer than a paper clip.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Enallagma ebrium
Group
Dragonflies and damselflies
Family
Coenagrionidae
Classification
Insecta > Odonata > Coenagrionidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Marsh 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.
  2. Picture by D. Gordon E. Robertson. 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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