Common Green Darner

The common green darner (Anax junius) is a large North American dragonfly that migrates south each autumn across the continent. It belongs to Odonata, an order of aerial predators that dates back to the Carboniferous.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Common Green Darner in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Ecdysozoa lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Huge compound eyes cover most of the head and give nearly all-round vision. Each of the four wings is driven by its own set of muscles, so the insect can hover, dart sideways and even fly backward. Dragonflies are among the most successful predators known, catching the large majority of the prey they pursue.

Eggs are laid in ponds, and the aquatic nymphs hunt tadpoles and insects with an extendable lower jaw, breathing through gills in the rectum. After a few months to a year, they climb out and molt into winged adults.

Tracking studies with tiny radio transmitters have shown that green darners move south in the fall, and a later generation returns north in spring, a multi-generation pattern like that of monarch butterflies. Wetland loss threatens their breeding sites.

• Monarch Butterfly — another migratory insect
• Green Drake Mayfly — a fellow member of the ancient winged insects