I have never seen one with color on the tips of the wings. I never saw it in flight it was on the storage room door for about an hour and I did see it take off. I looked up several websites to try and identify it but saw none that look like this. ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )
It looks like some exotic sort of Damselfly to me...but I am not familiar with North American insects. What a lovely creature it is.
Damselfly of some sort. I love the colors on the wings. I believe Dragonflies hold their wings out perpendicular to their body when at rest, Damselflies fold them back along the body.
It's definitely not a dragonfly or damselfly as they don't have antennae and neither hold there wings or legs in the positions shown in your photograph. I hope someone can positively ID it for you as it's a real beauty and I'd love to know exactly what it is.
I would also like to know what this is. This is a very interesting insect, none like I've ever seen before. I'm not too far from Tennessee and I hope I get to see one around sometime. Great picture too, you captured it's colors nicely.
Eileen was spot on about the antennae. It appears to be Neuroptera Myrmeleontidae (sometimes spelled,'Mymeleontidae'). The Neuroptera order is a large one with more than 6,000 species. Neuoptera insects are known as "antlions"...or "doodlebugs". The larvae make a trap in the form of an inverted cone in soft dirt or sand and hope that some unfortunate insect falls into it. The green-coloured lacewing is perhaps the most commonly seen insect in this order. They are more active nocturnally, I believe and if you handle one roughly, they will omit a pungent odor. A foto:
Good job Sjoerd, thank you . That's why you are the King of the Hill. I spent over an hour trying to identify it using google with no luck. I had never seen one before so I was really curious. Thanks to everyone for your comments and help in identifying the Neuroptera Myrmeleontidae.
Learn something new every day here. I never knew that antlions were the larvae of anything. Not related to Moths or Damselflies....but are related to green Lacewings, also called Netwings. They can and will sometimes bite humans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroptera
I've never seen anything like this in Louisiana either. It's wings are truly beautiful. Thanks guyes for the knowledge.
Like toni said learn something new everyday.I have never seen one but oh what a beauty.Yep Sjoerd is for sure the knowledge King.
You are most welcome, Gail. You know...you ought to publish this foto somewhere on the internet with the name of the picture being the name of the insect. Why do I say this? Because there are no good fotos that I could find. I can imagine that there may be others anxious to see an excellent foto of this insect. I think that the fact that you searched for an hour without finding it backs this up. Personally I find your foto far superior to the one that I found. The one that I found is of a specimen mounted in a typically scientific way, but the detail and size of your foto is much better, don't you agree?
I do agree, it is a good idea. Even after you identified it, I could not find a photo that looked like mine. The one you found was the most similar. I will post it on my picasa web album with the name. Those do come up in a google search
Attagirl, Gail! This foto could really contibute to the scientific community as well as the interested general public. Once again, congrats on taking such a good foto.
It's lovely, Gail. I wish there were some proper online encyclopedias on bugs and butterflies. I can never seem to find the ones I want, not even in books.
