Spot-winged Gliders (Pantala hymenaea) (family Libellulidae) are one of two species in the world that are in the Rainpool glider genus Pantala.  The other, the Wandering Glider, aka the Globe Skimmer or the Globe Wanderer, is a world traveler, but the Spot-winged Glider is only found in the Americas – North, Central, and South.  In North America, they’re dragonflies of open areas with shallow and/or temporary waters from the Great Plains, east, along with a sprinkling of western states.  According to the Wisconsin Odonata Survey (https://wiatri.net/inventory/odonata/) (a great source  of information), “It is infrequently seen at scattered locations throughout Wisconsin.”

Wandering Gliders are golden https://bugguide.net/node/view/1619106/bgimage, and Spot-winged Gliders are gray/tan-to-reddish in color and more distinctly patterned, and although they are small, the spots that give them their name are visible in flight, especially when the dragonfly is circling overhead (which they often do, because they seem to be curious about us).  They’re about 2” in length, with long, broad wings designed for sustained flight https://bugguide.net/node/view/64312/bgimage.

Of all the places where dragonflies deposit their eggs – ponds, lakes, ephemeral ponds, quiet bays in rivers, etc. – rainpool gliders pick the most transient, fish-free waters, including garden water features and rain puddles (hence their name), and sometimes they mistake the shiny hood of a car for water and lob some eggs down onto it!  The adults are constantly on the move, looking for favorable spots to oviposit.  Their naiads develop quickly, in just weeks. 

Like other dragonflies (and damselflies) they are carnivores both as aquatic naiads and as airborne adults.  They are aerial feeders, finding and catching their prey in the air.  One source calls them important predators of mosquitoes, which they will hunt until the light gets too dim to see them, and they often join dragonflies like saddlebags and darners in feeding swarms.  Like birds, they fuel their long (days-long) flights, sometimes over oceans, by laying in fat deposits. 

If you want to see gliders, look up – they spend the vast majority of their time foraging for mosquitoes and gnats as high as 100 feet above fields, marshes, and parking lots, and when they land, they are well-concealed, perching vertically at the tip of a twig with abdomen curved https://bugguide.net/node/view/1552286/bgimage. 

In the “Notes from the field” section of his account of the Spot-winged Glider in his Dragonflies of Northern Virginia blog, Kevin Munroe writes about trying to photograph them – “The two female gliders to your right were caught after much running and leaping; set down to photograph, they soon caught their breath and flew.”

Both Wandering and Spot-winged Gliders are on the list of about 16 species of North American dragonflies that are considered migratory https://www.xerces.org/publications/identification-monitoring-guides/field-guide-to-migratory-dragonflies, and they join the migratory swarms of Common Green Darners https://bugguide.net/node/view/2071318/bgimage and Black Saddlebags https://bugguide.net/node/view/1409103/bgimage that fly south along Lake Michigan’s shoreline – right about now.  A northbound migration from tropical areas repopulates God’s Country in summer.

For information about the Wandering Glider, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/wandering-glider/.

The BugLady is tardy in commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the death of her Major Professor, Dr. Richard B. Fischer, the content of whose fantastic natural history courses she uses Every! Single! Day!  (right BugFan Mike?)  He would have enjoyed BOTW. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/