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Sticker of Blue-faced meadowhawk
Bug card No. 0551 of 4,939

Blue-faced meadowhawk

Sympetrum ambiguum
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsDragonflies and damselfliesPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The blue-faced meadowhawk is a small dragonfly with a face the colour of aqua blue. A grown-up male has a bright red tail with black stripes. Females and young ones stay brown.

Lives in
The Midwest of North America, close to water
Length
3.8 cm (1.5 in)
Top speed
about 32 km/h (20 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Dragonflies do not sting people.
What does it eat?
Like all dragonflies, it catches small flying insects in the air.
For real!Photo of Blue-faced meadowhawk
Picture by Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Blue-faced meadowhawk about 3.8 cm long (1.5 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 12 secondsmoves 230 times its own body length every second

How big is Blue-faced meadowhawk compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its blue face is the best clue to tell it apart from other meadowhawks that look very similar.

2

Both males and females have six black rings on their tail.

3

You can see it from summer until autumn.

you asked

Most asked questions about Blue-faced meadowhawk

?Why is it called blue-faced?

Because its face is a bright aqua blue, unlike other meadowhawks.

?How big is the blue-faced meadowhawk?

It is small, at most about 3.8 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Sympetrum ambiguum
Group
Dragonflies and damselflies
Family
Libellulidae
Classification
Insecta > Odonata > Libellulidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Sympetrum ambiguum (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, 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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