Meet the Neighbors: Twelve-spotted Skimmer

For the introduction to this series, see here.

This beautiful dragonfly is a mosquito-eating machine. The larvae live in ponds and lakes and are carnivorous, eating almost anything they can catch. One thing that they eat a lot of is mosquito larvae. The adults are excellent hunters. One of their main foods is adult mosquitoes. This species used to be called the ten-spotted skimmer. If you count the white spots on the wings, you will find that there are ten white spots. The white spots are not as noticeable as the dark spots so eventually, people decided to change its name to the twelve-spotted skimmer. If you count the prominent dark spots, there are twelve.