Red-tailed Skimmer

Orthemis schmidti · Order: Odonata · Family: Libellulidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Red-tailed Skimmer
Photo: Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Red-tailed Skimmer has a reddish-brown forehead and clear wings with a brown tip spot. It was first described from a specimen collected in Peru and is known from northern South America, the Caribbean and Central America.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

A reddish-brown forehead stands out at the front of the insect. Its wings are clear like a window and have a brown spot at the tip.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

The species was first described in 1950 by Karl Friedrich Buchholz.

Source: Wikipedia

Status: native in North America. Source: iNaturalist

More photos

Red-tailed Skimmer photo 3
Photo: Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0
Red-tailed Skimmer photo 4
Photo: Gerry van Tonder, CC BY

Same family (Libellulidae)

Blue DasherBlue DasherPachydiplax longipennisEastern PondhawkEastern PondhawkErythemis simplicicollisCommon WhitetailCommon WhitetailPlathemis lydiaWidow SkimmerWidow SkimmerLibellula luctuosaAutumn MeadowhawkAutumn MeadowhawkSympetrum vicinumCommon DarterCommon DarterSympetrum striolatum

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthemis_schmidti

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-23 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-23.

How this page works

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