Types of Dragonflies in New York: From Common Skimmers to Rare Bog Specialists

New York’s ponds, forest gorges, and remote northern bogs support one of the richest dragonfly faunas in the northeastern United States. According to a survey published by The Insect Guide,

Among the many types of dragonflies in New York, three species stand out for how differently they live, breed, and survive. One is a familiar sight at almost any pond in the state. Another hides in forest seeps and rarely leaves a handful of Finger Lakes gorges. The third barely exists in New York at all, clinging to a few sphagnum bogs at the southern edge of a range that stretches to Siberia. Together they show just how much variety hides behind a single insect order.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

The twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella) is one of the dragonflies New York pond-watchers are most likely to run into on a warm afternoon. It is a large species, at 50 mm (2.0 in) long. It is a common North American skimmer dragonfly, found in southern Canada and in all 48 of the contiguous U.S. states.

Its wings are the easiest way to confirm an identification. Each wing has three brown spots. Adult males add extra pale markings between those brown spots and near the base of the hindwings, a pattern that has earned the species a nickname among dragonfly watchers: the “ten-spot skimmer,” a reference to the total count of white spots that appear once the male markings develop.

Pro Tip: Look for twelve-spotted skimmers perched on exposed twigs or cattail stems at the edges of ponds and slow streams. Males often return to the same perch after short patrol flights, which makes them easier to photograph than most fast-flying skimmers.

This species favors open freshwater habitats such as ponds, marshes, and slow-moving streams, where males patrol territories over the water. Because it tolerates a wide range of water quality and vegetation types, it turns up in city parks as readily as in rural wetlands, making it one of the more approachable dragonflies for beginners working through New York’s dragonfly diversity. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists it among the widespread native skimmers found across much of the continental United States.

Gray Petaltail

The gray petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi) breaks nearly every rule that applies to typical New York dragonflies, starting with where its young grow up. Most dragonflies lay their eggs in water bodies, and the eggs grow into juvenile dragonflies, called nymphs, that also typically live in water. That is not the case for the gray petaltail nymphs, since the gray petaltail is the only species of dragonfly that does not have fully aquatic nymphs. Instead, the petaltail nymphs live and grow while hidden in the mud, moss and moist leaf litter in the forest seeps, and as the nymphs mature, they climb up the trunks of trees to become the adult dragonflies.

In New York, this species is closely tied to one landscape feature. The gray petaltail is found in several of the Finger Lakes gorge parks, where it hunts in the gorges because it can move to the sunny side to warm up and fly faster; petaltails are drawn to the gorges to lay their eggs in the soggy seeps on wooded slopes. That dependence on shaded, moisture-fed seeps rather than open ponds explains why the species shows up in so few places statewide.

Size and color make the gray petaltail hard to mistake for anything else once you know what to look for. Today’s petaltails are one of the larger species of dragonflies, with a wingspan of up to 5 inches wide, and their distinct black and gray coloring makes them easy to identify. This species often perches upon rocks and tree trunks, but it is not uncommon for it to perch upon a passerby.

Pro Tip: If a gray petaltail lands on you while hiking a Finger Lakes gorge trail, stay still and enjoy the encounter. Although they are large and ferocious insect predators that eat thousands of mosquitoes, dragonflies are harmless to humans, so you can gently brush one away or simply let it ride along.

Because it survives in such a narrow set of habitats, the gray petaltail is listed as a species of special concern within New York State, as it is only known in specialized habitat in a small number of locations. Visitors to gorge parks in the Finger Lakes region have the best odds of spotting one during summer odonate surveys.

Subarctic Darner

The subarctic darner (Aeshna subarctica), sometimes called the bog hawker, is a dragonfly that most New Yorkers will never see, and that scarcity is the point. It is a species of dragonfly belonging to the family Aeshnidae, the darners and hawkers, and this holarctic dragonfly is found in Europe and Northern Asia, as well as North America. New York sits at the extreme southern edge of a range that otherwise belongs to Canada and the far north.

Records of this species in the state are limited to a handful of northern counties. The species is known in New York from three counties: a population at Jam Pond in Chenango County recorded from 1973 to 2009, Bloomingdale Bog in Essex County from 2011 to 2021, and Spring Pond Bog along with at least one to four additional sites in Franklin County. New York is at the very southern range extent, and the southernmost known record in the species’ entire range sits just across the border in Sussex County, New Jersey.

Species	Typical Adult Size	Primary New York Habitat	New York Rarity
Twelve-spotted Skimmer	About 2 inches	Ponds, marshes, slow streams statewide	Common and widespread
Gray Petaltail	Up to 5-inch wingspan	Forest seeps in Finger Lakes gorges	Species of special concern
Subarctic Darner	Large, slender-bodied darner	Sphagnum bogs in the Adirondacks	Rare, at southern range edge

Habitat explains why the subarctic darner is so hard to find. Preferred breeding sites are boreal peatlands with a specific plant community; the Montana Field Guide notes that preferred breeding habitat of the subarctic darner is in swamps, fens, and bog ponds with a clear vegetative edge of abundant sphagnum and other mosses. New York’s version of that habitat exists almost exclusively in Adirondack bogs, which is why sightings cluster so tightly around Essex and Franklin counties.

Identifying one in the field takes practice, since it closely resembles other mosaic darners. Adults are large, fast-flying insects with a brown thorax marked by blue-green stripes and a long, slender brown abdomen, and the clearest field mark is a front thoracic stripe that bends forward at the top rather than running straight or curving back like related species. Patrolling males tend to fly low over open water, hovering frequently rather than following the water’s edge the way many other darners do.

Important Note: Wildlife biologists caution that new subarctic darner sightings in New York likely reflect more people searching bogs rather than the species actually spreading south. The New York Natural Heritage Program notes that there are likely additional undiscovered populations in the Adirondacks, though this remains primarily a species of Canada and northern Europe that is not expected to turn up in a large number of New York locations.

A detailed species status assessment from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation treats the subarctic darner as one of the state’s rarest odonates, tracked closely because its entire New York presence depends on a small number of intact bog systems. For anyone hoping to see one, a trip to an Adirondack bog boardwalk in midsummer, ideally guided by a naturalist familiar with the site, offers far better odds than a random pond visit.

Seen side by side, these three species map out the range of strategies dragonflies use to survive in New York. The twelve-spotted skimmer thrives by being generalized and tolerant of almost any freshwater habitat. The gray petaltail survives by specializing in forest seeps that few other dragonflies can use. The subarctic darner persists only because a scattering of Adirondack bogs still resemble the boreal habitat it needs, thousands of miles south of where the species is common. Spending a season looking for all three is one of the more rewarding ways to appreciate how much habitat diversity New York still holds.