Bugland: Blue Pirate With The Jade-Green Eyes

Blue Pirates, also commonly called Blue Dashers, are dragonflies of the skimmer family. They live near still, calm bodies of water — zipping around ponds, marshes and ditches during the day, and roosting in trees at night. They are voracious predators, eating hundreds of insects every day, including mosquitoes and flies. This Blue Pirate was photographed at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge by Mark Silverstein.