The Yellow-legged Meadowhawk or Autumn Meadowhawk or (Sympetrum vicinum) is a member of the Libellulidae

Libellulidae

The skimmers or perchers and their relatives form the Libellulidae, the largest dragonfly family in the world. It is sometimes considered to contain the Corduliidae as the subfamily Corduliinae and the Macromiidae as the subfamily Macromiinae. Even if these are excluded , there still remains a...

 family and grows to 26–35 mm long.

Naiad

This is a small naiad, with a length of 12 millimetre. It is mottled green and brown in color. The abdomen has several large hooks along the top, and the last two abdominal segments have a single, large, rear-facing spine on each side. This species has bigger eyes than other members of this genus.

Adult

This is a small dragonfly, with a length of 30 millimetre. The wings are mostly clear but have a small patch of yellowish to orange clouding at the base of each hindwing. Mature males are brownish black on the face and thorax and have a red abdomen, while immature males have a yellow thorax and a yellowish brown abdomen. Females have a brown thorax and a brownish-red abdomen. As its common name implies, the legs of the adults are yellow.

Range and Habitat

You can see this dragonfly in, and around marshes, ponds and slow-moving streams throughout the eastern United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, southern Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, the Great Plains

Great Plains

The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

, and the west coast of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. This species has two separate populations in North America. One is found from Ontario east to Nova Scotia, extending south into the U.S. to Texas and Florida. The other population occurs in British Columbia, Washington, and Idaho.

Naiad

Naiads feed on a wide variety of aquatic insects, such as mosquito larvae, other aquatic fly larvae, mayfly larvae, and freshwater shrimp. They will also eat very small fish and tadpoles.

Adult

The dragonfly will eat almost any soft-bodied flying insect including mosquitoes, flies, small moths, mayflies, and flying ants or termites.

Ecology

The naiads live in the debris of the bottoms of lakes and ponds. They do not actively pursue prey but wait for it to pass by, a strategy which affords them protection from other predators. The naiads emerge, or make the transition to adult dragonflies, at night. Adults fly from early August through October. This species flies later in the fall than any other species in the Northwest, with observations as late as October 29 in Idaho, and into November in Washington. The adults of this species hunt flying insects from perches on rocks or bare branches. The Latin name for this genus, Sympetrum, means "with rock" and refers to their habit of basking on rocks to absorb heat early in the day. This dragonfly is extremely abundant where it occurs, with large numbers of pairs flying and laying eggs in tandem.

Reproduction

The female flies with the male still attached after mating (a position called "in tandem") and lays her eggs near the shoreline of lakes and ponds by dipping the tip her abdomen on the surface of the water. Large-mouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) have been observed following mated pairs of dragonflies as they fly just above the surface, and then eating them as they touch the surface to lay eggs.