''Erythemis collocata'', the western pondhawk, is a

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

of the family

Libellulidae The skimmers or perchers and their relatives form the Libellulidae, the largest dragonfly family in the world. It is sometimes considered to contain the Corduliidae as the subfamily Corduliinae and the Macromiidae as the subfamily Macromiinae. E ...

, native to western

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, the western

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, and

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Food Resources

''Erythemis collocata'' is known to feed on the western malaria mosquito, ''

Anopheles freeborni ''Anopheles freeborni'', commonly known as the western malaria mosquito, is a species of mosquito in the family Culicidae. It is typically found in the western United States and Canada. Adults are brown to black, with yellow-brown hairs and gr ...

''. This predation primarily occurs at dusk, when ''A. freeborni'' aggregate into swarms in order to mate. Due to the reliance of ''E. collocata'' on visual stimuli to attack its prey, the frequency of attacks decreases as the sky gets darker.

References

External links

Libellulidae Odonata of North America Insects of Mexico Insects of the United States Fauna of the Western United States Fauna of the California chaparral and woodlands Fauna of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Insects described in 1861 Taxa named by Hermann August Hagen {{dragonfly-stub