Slender ringtail
Austrolestes analis
Name means: “southern robber”
The slender ringtail is an Australian damselfly with an extra thin body. Grown-up males are often pale blue and black. It flies near lakes and slow rivers from spring until autumn.
Lives in
Southern Australia and Tasmania, near lakes and slow rivers
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. Its babies grow up under water and hunt tiny water animals.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Slender ringtail about 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its long tail alone is about 3 centimetres long.
2
The blue on a male can be bright or quite pale. It changes from one damselfly to the next.
3
Experts tell it apart from its cousins by the pattern on the top of its chest.
4
A French scientist called Jules Pierre Rambur described it for the first time in 1862.
you asked
Most asked questions about Slender ringtail
?Where does the slender ringtail live?
In southern Australia and Tasmania, near lakes, slow rivers and the plants around them.
?Is the slender ringtail dangerous?
No. Damselflies have no sting and are harmless to people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Austrolestes analis
- Named by
- Rambur, 1862
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Lestidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Lestidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Slender ringtail (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 Tony from Tasmania, Australia. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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