Halloween Pennant

Here's another Halloween Pennant. You can see the orangish wings that give this pennant its Halloween name. Not all dragonflies like to perch on the top of narrow vegetation, but it's a favored location for pennants. It's probably a little uncomfortable getting 6 legs on/around such a small perch, but probably offers the pennants the most different directions for flying off the perch, either to escape a predator or to attack as a predator.

Some entomologists think the orangish coloring and a more erratic flight pattern than most dragonflies make the Halloween Pennant a mimic of the Monarch butterfly. This would be another example of Batesian mimicry, where some predators might pass the dragonfly by because they mistake it for a foul-tasting Monarch. I'm not sure the resemblance is close enough to fool most predators, though I suppose if a predator got only a quick look they could mistake the 2 insects.

July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 148655861, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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