Dragonfly or Damselfly Identification: Telling It From Look-Alikes

• Resting wing posture: dragonflies hold their wings flat and spread out at rest.
• Resting wing posture: damselflies fold their wings together and hold them upright over the body like a sail at rest.
• Build: dragonflies have short, stout bodies.
• Build: damselflies are thin and slender, sometimes called the "dainty cousin" of dragonflies.
• Distinguishing from mayflies (nymph habitat): dragonfly/damselfly nymphs tolerate still water well, while mayfly nymphs generally need faster-flowing, higher-oxygen water.

People most often mix dragonflies and damselflies up with:

• Mayflies

Open the other page and compare its list against the marks above; the differences are usually in the antennae, wings or the way the body is divided.

Natural pest controllers that prey on whatever flying insects are plentiful — flies, midges, beetles, mosquitoes, and more; considered beneficial.

Found on every continent except Antarctica, almost anywhere there is freshwater — lakes, ponds, wetlands, streams, rivers, vernal pools, and bogs.

Get as close as your camera will focus, from directly above, in daylight or a bright lamp. Include the whole body with the legs and antennae in frame; a second shot from the side shows wings and body segments. Put a coin or ruler next to it for scale. For a bite or a bug found on skin or bedding, photograph the bug itself, not the mark. The app names the likely group; use the list above to confirm.

You identify a dragonfly by first confirming it is a dragonfly and not a damselfly, then checking its colours and markings in a fixed order. Dragonflies rest with their wings held flat and out from the body; damselflies fold theirs along or above the abdomen. A dragonfly's eyes meet on top of the head, while a damselfly's are well separated on the sides, and a dragonfly's hindwings are broader than its forewings (Wikipedia).

For the species, WingSearch2020's dragonfly guide works through:

• Abdomen colour and spot pattern.
• Abdomen shape: a pinched waist in males versus uniform thickness in females in many species.
• Wing colour and markings.
• Thorax markings: the stripes on the side and on the shoulders.
• Eye colour.
• Then habitat, location and date, which rule many species in or out.

Photograph the side of the thorax and the top of the abdomen, and note the date: flight seasons are short and differ by species.

The two families people meet most are skimmers and darners (called hawkers in Britain). Wikipedia gives the largest families as the skimmers (Libellulidae, 1,037 species), the clubtails (Gomphidae, 980) and the darners or hawkers (Aeshnidae, 456).

• Skimmers: InsectIdentification.org's North American list includes the eastern pondhawk, flame skimmer, great blue skimmer and Halloween pennant.
• Darners and hawkers: the common green darner is on the same North American list. In Britain, WingSearch2020 covers seven hawkers: the emperor (the largest UK species, bright blue abdomen with a black stripe), brown hawker (golden wings, June to early autumn), southern hawker (a common late-summer visitor to gardens), migrant hawker (very common in late summer, hunting near dusk and in groups), common hawker, hairy dragonfly (the smallest hawker, mid-May to June) and Norfolk hawker (East Anglian wetlands only, late May to mid-July).

WingSearch2020 counts some 47 Odonata breeding in the UK: 20 damselflies and 27 dragonflies. InsectIdentification.org listed 60 dragonflies and damselflies in its database when we opened it on 25 September 2026.

• Damselflies: the most common confusion; use the wing posture and eye spacing above.
• Owlflies: superficially similar to dragonflies, but with long, clubbed antennae; dragonflies have short, bristle-like antennae. Owlflies are about 1.5 inches long without the antennae, and there are about 450 species, mostly in warm temperate and tropical regions (Wikipedia).
• Antlion adults: close relatives of owlflies with short, weakly clubbed antennae, smaller eyes and net-like wing veins (Wikipedia). Like owlflies, they have visible antennae that a dragonfly lacks.
• Mayflies: compare with the mayfly page.

The quickest single check is the antennae: if you can see obvious antennae, it is not a dragonfly.

Not rare. There are about 3,000 dragonfly species (Wikipedia), found on every continent except Antarctica wherever there is freshwater. What is short is the adult stage: Wikipedia notes that most species live as adults for about five weeks or less, and some for only a few days, after spending up to five years underwater as nymphs in large species, or two months to three years in small ones.

So seeing a particular species depends on timing. In Britain the hairy dragonfly flies from mid-May through June, while the migrant hawker is a late-summer species (WingSearch2020). Adults are efficient hunters: Wikipedia cites research showing they catch about 95% of the prey they chase.

In the Americas, OdonataCentral is a citizen-science site for the distribution and identification of dragonflies and damselflies in the Western Hemisphere. It is run by Birds in the Hand, LLC with support from the National Science Foundation and the Alabama Museum of Natural History, takes photo records and checklists, draws in iNaturalist sightings and has an iOS and Android app. Photograph it and InsectLens identifies it; then submit the record so your sighting adds to the distribution data.

Research and drafting for this page used AI assistance. Every figure, date and quotation was then checked line by line against the sources listed at the bottom of the page, each of which was opened while writing. Nothing here is a diagnosis. If a bite, sting or contact with an insect is followed by trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, spreading redness, fever or any symptom that worries you, get medical care; in the United States Poison Help (1-800-222-1222) is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.