Do Dragonflies Bite or Sting?

Do Dragonflies Bite or Sting?

No, although large dragonflies, if held in the hand, will sometimes try to bite they fail to break the skin. They have a lot of “folk names” which imply that they do, such as “Horse-stinger”, but they don’t use their egg-laying tube (ovipositor) for stinging. Nor do they attack people, though they are fearsome predators of other flying insects.

Keep in mind, though, that dragonflies don’t have a stinger, so they won’t sting you. They do, however, have teeth. So a bite is possible. Dragonflies aren’t an aggressive insect, but they can bite out of self-defense when they feel threatened.

Do dragonflies bite or sting?

Do dragonflies bite?

The simple answer is NO. The full answer to this question has three parts:

　　Dragonflies do bite, and they will bite humans, but only if you catch one and it’s trying to escape or defend itself. And only the largest dragonflies will be able to break your skin anyway.

　　Dragonflies have large, powerful jaws and are ferocious airborne predators, catching flying prey in a basket-like gantry of legs and dispatching it with a single crunch. Their large size, bright colours and rapacious behaviour can make them seem threatening, hence nicknames such as devil’s darning needle and horse-stinger.

(1) “Do dragonflies bite?” YES, dragonflies bite, because that’s how they capture their food. They have impressive, sharply pointed mandibles that chomp down on the smaller insects they catch.

(2) “Do dragonflies bite people?” YES, if you catch one and hold it in your hand and carelessly allow its mandibles to reach your skin, it will bite as hard as it can in self defense. Very few dragonflies can even break the skin, but some of the big ones can do so and may induce an “ouch”. They’re certainly no danger to you, as the biggest dragonfly has a relatively small bite. A word of warning though: if, for some educational reason, you plan to let a dragonfly bite you, make sure you don’t suddenly pull back, as you’ll probably pull its head off and this is not a good example to present your audience!

(3) “Do dragonflies bite people spontaneously?” A big resounding NO. A dragonfly would never land on someone and bite.

Do dragonflies sting?

The simple answer to this is NO – they have no ‘sting’ as such. BUT there have been a number of accounts of egg-laying dragonflies that, when interrupted, continued the operation into the flesh or clothing of examining odonatists. Such actions could well be the origins of the many “old wives tales” pertaining to stinging dragonflies, and could also provide the answer as to why odonates have the names of ‘Horse-stingers’ and ‘Devil’s Darning Needles’. These names, and others like them, are part of dragonfly folk-lore in many parts of the world.

Dragonflies don’t sting, because they physically can’t.The combination of a long, almost prehensile tail and a perennial confusion between biting and stinging continually clouds the issue. But dragonflies don’t have a sting and so they certainly can’t sting you or anything else – all their hunting is done using their mouths.

Do dragonfly larvae bite or sting?

Again basically, despite their ferocious appearance, dragonfly larvae do not harm people. However, late-instar larvae of larger species can use their mandibles to take a nip at an intrusive odonatist’s finger to give a noticeable poke. Cases have also been reported of loosely held larvae ‘stinging’ a researcher by turning its abdomen from side to side and inserting the sharply-pointed lateral spines into the intruder’s flesh.

Are dragonflies dangerous?

In truth dragonflies are harmless to humans – unless you force your finger into their mouth. A large golden-ringed dragonfly once gave my father’s finger a bloody nip as he held it for me to photograph.

But dragonflies certainly can’t sting you, and they won’t bite you unless severely provoked. If you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone, and you can sit back and watch these beautiful insects dazzle you with their hunting flights.