Types of Dragonflies in California: A Field Guide to 7 Common Groups

A single dragonfly can eat up to 100 mosquitoes in a day, which makes these aerial hunters some of the hardest-working predators along California’s waterways. With 73 confirmed dragonfly species and dozens more damselflies sharing the same ponds and creeks, sorting through the types of dragonflies in California can feel overwhelming at first glance.

The good news is that most sightings fall into just a handful of recognizable groups. Learning these seven families and standout species gives any backyard naturalist, hiker, or birder a fast way to identify what just buzzed past the water’s edge.

Group	Family	Example California Species	Field Mark
Flame Skimmer	Libellulidae	Libellula saturata	Fiery orange-red body and wings
Blue Dasher	Libellulidae	Pachydiplax longipennis	Powder-blue abdomen, striped thorax
Darners	Aeshnidae	Anax junius	Large size, fast continuous flight
Meadowhawks	Libellulidae	Sympetrum species	Small, red or orange males
Skimmers	Libellulidae	Libellula luctuosa	Patterned or banded wings
Clubtails	Gomphidae	Gomphus kurilis	Widened, club-like abdomen tip
Spiketails	Cordulegastridae	Cordulegaster dorsalis	Slanted perch, spike-like ovipositor

Important Note: Species counts vary depending on the source. Kathy Biggs and Sandra von Arb’s field guide counts the state’s true dragonflies (suborder Anisoptera) at 73 species, while broader counts that include damselflies push the total past 100.

Flame Skimmer

The Libellula saturata, known to most Californians simply as the Flame Skimmer, is hard to miss once the light hits it right. Males display brilliant orange-red bodies and wings that seem to glow in the sunlight, while females wear duller amber-brown tones that help them blend into shoreline vegetation.

These are large dragonflies, and adults measure about 2.5 to 3 inches in length, with broad wings and a thick abdomen. Males stake out territory along open water and return to the same perch again and again, a habit that makes them one of the easier species to photograph.

Flame Skimmers favor warmth, and these dragonflies are generally found around hot springs or warm ponds in California. That preference explains why sightings cluster in the southern and central parts of the state, where sun-baked ponds and slow creeks stay warm through summer.

Pro Tip: Watch a warm, sunlit perch near still water for ten minutes rather than chasing movement. Territorial male Flame Skimmers almost always return to the same twig or rock.

Blue Dasher

At barely over an inch long, the Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) is one of the smallest dragonflies covered here, but its coloring makes it stand out against green pond vegetation. This small but vibrantly colored dragonfly brings flashes of blue and green to California’s wetlands.

Males develop a powdery blue abdomen with a dark, striped thorax, while females and immature males show more yellow-and-brown banding. Unlike the Flame Skimmer’s preference for warm ponds, Blue Dashers tolerate a wider mix of habitats, from garden ponds to slow irrigation ditches, which is part of why the species appears on lists of common dragonflies across both Northern and Southern California.

Blue Dashers often perch horizontally on low vegetation right at the water’s edge, angling their abdomens toward the sun in a behavior called obelisking that helps them regulate body temperature during hot afternoons.

Darners

Darners belong to the family Aeshnidae, and in California this group splits into a few recognizable genera. Field observers typically separate darners and skimmers as the two easiest dragonfly groups to identify on sight, since darners fly almost constantly rather than perching for long stretches.

The Common Green Darner (Anax junius) is the group’s most familiar member. This species is one of the most widespread dragonflies in North America, found in over 40 states and 3 Canadian provinces, and it migrates through California in early spring ahead of most other species. The state’s largest darner carries an even more impressive résumé: the Giant Darner can fly at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.

Blue-eyed Darners also turn up in large numbers at certain sites. One long-running California dragonfly sighting log described a location where observers were amazed at the sheer number of easily viewed Blue-eyed Darners compared with anywhere else they had visited that year. Female darners are also identifiable up close by a prominent ovipositor beneath the tip of the abdomen, a feature shared with damselflies but absent in most other dragonfly families.

Meadowhawks

Meadowhawks are the small, often fiery-colored dragonflies in the genus Sympetrum, and California hosts an unusually varied lineup of them. Field lists commonly include Variegated, Cardinal, Red-veined, Band-winged, and Striped Meadowhawks across both northern and southern regions of the state, while the University of California Press guide to the state’s Odonates also documents the Black Meadowhawk among its complete species accounts.

The Variegated Meadowhawk is often the easiest to spot in bulk. One field report from the Imperial Valley described the species as showing up everywhere, with hundreds seen in tandem and actively ovipositing in ponds, alongside brightly colored solitary males patrolling nearby.

Meadowhawks also have an unusual life cycle compared with darners and clubtails. Because many meadowhawks breed in temporary habitats late in the season, it is typically the eggs rather than the larvae that overwinter, hatching the following spring when seasonal ponds refill.

Skimmers

Skimmers make up the subfamily Libellulinae within the broader family Libellulidae, and they include some of the most frequently photographed dragonflies in the state. Most skimmers fall in the genus Libellula, though the Common Whitetail is sometimes placed in its own genus, Plathemis, because of its distinct chalky-white male abdomen.

The Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) is one of the more recognizable members, identified by broad dark patches at the base of each wing. Eight-spotted and Twelve-spotted Skimmers add even more wing patterning to the mix, and all three species commonly overlap with Flame Skimmers and Blue Dashers at the same ponds.

Roseate Skimmers bring a fierce edge to the group. Male Roseate Skimmers stake out territories over water sources and will aggressively defend their territory from other male Roseate Skimmers. Hoary Skimmers and Red Rock Skimmers round out the state’s more desert-adapted species, and identifying any of them gets easier with a detailed identification key built specifically for California species.

Clubtails

Clubtails belong to the family Gomphidae, named for the widened, paddle-like tip of the male’s abdomen. They can be genuinely tricky to sort out in the field, and clubtails can be very easy to photograph and almost impossible to tell apart without a clear shot of that abdomen tip.

California’s clubtail roster includes the Pacific Clubtail (Gomphus kurilis), Bison Snaketail, Gray Sanddragon, White-belted Ringtail, and Pale-faced Clubskimmer, with several of these species split between the state’s northern and southern regions. Clubtails tend to favor moving water over still ponds, which sets them apart from most skimmers and meadowhawks.

Pro Tip: Get both a top-down shot and a side profile of any clubtail before it flies off. The exact shape and color of the abdomen tip is often the only reliable way to separate similar-looking species.

Clubtails also take their time growing up. Species that develop in streams and rivers, including many clubtails, may live as larvae for 2 to 4 years before emerging as adults, far longer than the single season most meadowhawks spend underwater.

Spiketails

Spiketails are the rarest sighting on this list, and for good reason. The family Cordulegastridae is a small group composed of about eight species across all of North America, several times fewer than the darner or skimmer families.

The group’s name comes from female behavior at egg-laying time. Spiketails derive their name from the vertical up and down spiking movement of the female as she releases her eggs into the soil near flowing water, a very different technique from the meadowhawk habit of dipping an abdomen directly into open ponds.

Perching posture sets spiketails apart from darners too. While darners typically hang vertically, spiketails tend to hang at a slant angle to the ground beneath them. The Pacific Spiketail (Cordulegaster dorsalis) is the species most likely to turn up in California, favoring clear, shaded forest streams rather than open ponds. One field log even noted a reliable spiketail hotspot along a bridge crossing on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, underscoring just how habitat-specific this family can be.

Learning these seven groups covers most of what a curious observer will encounter at a California pond, stream, or marsh between late spring and early fall. Peak viewing runs from June through August, when warm, stable water levels bring out the highest numbers and the widest mix of species. For anyone who wants to go deeper than a summer’s worth of sightings, a dedicated regional field guide such as the one detailed on Field Guide Review’s overview of California’s Odonate guides offers full species accounts, range maps, and side-by-side photos for the rest of the state’s dragonfly diversity.