Dragonfly Trivia
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46 free Dragonfly trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Dragonflies are among the oldest flying insects and still the most accomplished. This quiz covers what makes them so good: compound eyes with nearly 24,000 facets, wings that beat independently so they can fly backwards and hover, acceleration of 9 g in a turn, and hunting success rates that shame any hawk. It also looks at the underwater years, when a nymph fires a hinged 'mask' at tadpoles and jets through the pond by squirting water from its backside. The second half ranges wider: how to tell a dragonfly from a damselfly, why the order is named after teeth, the Carboniferous giant Meganeura and its 70 cm wingspan, the globe skimmer's 18,000 km multigenerational migration, the green darner that is Washington's state insect, and dragonflies in Japanese poetry, Navajo symbolism, Art Nouveau jewellery and Indonesian frying pans. Folk names such as devil's darning needle and horse-stinger get their due. Every answer was verified against Wikipedia's articles on dragonflies, the Odonata and the species involved, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Insects quiz goes wider if you want more.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Dragonflies and damselflies make up which insect order?
Odonata
Odonata: the name, from the Greek for tooth, is thought to point to the insects' serrated jaws. Diptera are the true flies, Mantodea the mantises and Ephemeroptera the mayflies.
Q 02Roughly how many species of dragonfly exist?
About 3,000
About 3,000 dragonfly species are known. A first global assessment in 2021 found roughly one in six dragonfly and damselfly species at risk of extinction.
Q 03A dragonfly's compound eye has over 20,000 facets, each with its own what?
Lens
Lens: each facet is a separate light-gathering unit called an ommatidium, and together they give a dragonfly a field of vision approaching 360 degrees.
Q 04At rest, how does a dragonfly hold its wings, unlike a damselfly?
Flat and out from the body
Flat and out from the body. Dragonflies lack the hinge that lets most insects fold their wings back over the abdomen, an ancient limit they share with mayflies.
Q 05NASA's rotorcraft mission named Dragonfly was designed to fly across which moon of Saturn?
Titan
Titan has air about four times denser than Earth's and roughly a seventh of its gravity, which makes flying the easiest way to move a lander between sites there.
Q 06Roughly how long does a typical adult dragonfly live once it takes to the air?
A few weeks
A few weeks, though large species can manage some months. That is the short final act of a life spent mostly underwater, where the nymph can take years to grow.
Q 07In which dragonfly mating posture does the male grip the female's head while the female curls her abdomen forward?
The heart or wheel
The heart or wheel, a posture unique to dragonflies and damselflies. It is needed because the male moves his sperm beforehand to a second set of organs near the base of his abdomen.
Q 08Giant 'griffenflies', with wingspans up to 75 cm, first appeared in which geological period?
Carboniferous
Carboniferous, about 325 million years ago. Though often called giant dragonflies, griffenflies belonged to an extinct order of their own and were not true dragonflies.
Q 09What do adult dragonflies mainly eat?
Other flying insects
Other flying insects, mostly midges and mosquitoes seized in mid-air. The bigger species also take butterflies, moths and even smaller dragonflies.
Q 10One hypothesis for Meganeura's giant size links it to high levels of what in the ancient atmosphere?
Oxygen
Oxygen: richer ancient air was long thought to let an insect's breathing tubes supply a bigger body. The idea is now disputed, partly because giant griffenflies lived on after oxygen levels fell.
Q 11Where are the gills of a dragonfly nymph found?
Inside its rectum
Inside its rectum: the nymph draws water in and out of its abdomen to breathe. Damselfly nymphs instead wear their gills outside, as leaf-like plates at the tip of the tail.
Q 12Which is the only continent with no dragonflies?
Antarctica
Antarctica alone has none. Dragonflies are such strong fliers that they have colonised remote ocean islands, and a single species occurs on every other continent.
Q 13Which dragonfly is considered the world's most widespread, turning up in warm regions on almost every continent?
The globe skimmer
Q 21While a fly flaps by flexing its thorax, what drives a dragonfly's wings?
Muscles attached straight to them
Muscles attached straight to them: a tug on the wing base just inside its hinge levers the wing up like an oar, and a second set just outside the hinge pulls it down.
Q 22In one study, what spoiled more dragonfly attacks on fruit flies than deliberate dodging did?
Random turns
Random turns: the flies rarely tried to dodge and rarely escaped when they did, but their routine, erratic swerves made more attacks fail than any evasive move.
Q 23Which trick do male dragonflies use to sneak up on a rival in mid-air?
Motion camouflage
The globe skimmer, Pantala flavescens, breeds in short-lived rainwater pools, so it follows the rains across continents and even over open sea.
Q 14Millions of dragonflies ride monsoon winds on a yearly circuit of up to 18,000 km across which ocean?
Indian
Indian: successive generations relay from India to East Africa and back, and single insects cover more than 6,000 km of the route.
Q 15Dragonfly legs are built for perching and seizing prey, which leaves the insect barely capable of what?
Walking
Walking is almost beyond a dragonfly. In flight its spiny legs point forward to form a basket that scoops prey out of the air.
Q 16A dragonfly nymph catches prey by shooting out which body part, sometimes called a mask?
Its lower lip
Its lower lip, the labium, shoots out at speed, seizes the victim and drags it back to the jaws; tadpoles and even small fish are caught this way.
Q 17How can a dragonfly nymph move with sudden speed through a pond?
Jet propulsion from its rear end
Jet propulsion from its rear end: the nymph breathes by pumping water through its abdomen, and squirting that water out hard shoots it forward to escape danger.
Q 18A newly emerged dragonfly, called a teneral, is easy prey mainly because its wings are still what?
Soft
Soft: a teneral is pale and flies weakly until its body and wings harden, so many are picked off by birds on that first flight.
Q 19Unlike butterflies, dragonflies skip which stage of life entirely?
The pupa
The pupa: a full-grown nymph simply climbs out of the water, its skin splits and the winged adult hauls itself free, leaving the empty case behind.
Q 20Roughly how fast can a large dragonfly such as a hawker fly?
50 km/h
50 km/h in a sprint, yet the same insect can hover on the spot and even fly backwards.
Motion camouflage: the attacker keeps itself on a line between its rival and a fixed point, so it looms larger without seeming to move. Stereo cameras caught males doing it in territorial dogfights.
Q 24What do cold dragonflies do to heat their flight muscles when there is no sun to bask in?
Wing-whirring
Wing-whirring: the insect shivers its wings rapidly without taking off, and the working flight muscles heat up. They must be warm to fire properly, which is why dragonflies also bask.
Q 25Dragonflies sometimes lay eggs on cars, gravestones and solar panels because these surfaces mimic water how?
They reflect polarised light
They reflect polarised light, just as a pond does: egg-laying dragonflies find water by the horizontally polarised glare off its surface, so dark glossy paint, stone and glass fool them.
Q 26Clubtail dragonflies mostly breed in which kind of water?
Flowing rivers and streams
Flowing rivers and streams: clubtail nymphs need clean riverbeds, so water pollution hits them hard.
Q 27Which large migratory dragonfly is the official state insect of Washington?
Green darner
The common green darner, Anax junius, became Washington's state insect in 1997. Researchers have fitted these migrants with tiny radio transmitters and followed them south in autumn.
Q 28One of Britain's largest dragonflies, a hawker with a blue abdomen, is named after which ruler?
The emperor
The emperor, Anax imperator, is Britain's bulkiest dragonfly and rarely lands, even eating its catch on the wing; since the 1990s it has spread north as far as Scotland.
Q 29The helicopter damselflies of tropical America, with wingspans up to 19 cm, feed mainly on what?
Spiders plucked from webs
Spiders plucked from webs: the giant hovers before an orb web and snatches its builder. Its own young grow up in rain-filled tree holes, so the species depends on old forest.
Q 30In the American South, dragonflies were nicknamed 'snake doctors' from a belief that they did what?
Tended sick or injured snakes
Tended sick or injured snakes: Southern folklore had dragonflies following snakes around, nursing the sick back to health in one telling and stitching up the injured in another.