February Species of the Month: Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella)
Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella) (male), photo copyright Suzanne Winckler, August 4, 2022., near Hibbing, MN.
February’s DSA Species of the Month is the Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella). Nannothemis is a monotypic genus in the dragonfly family Libellulidae. The Elfin Skimmer is the smallest dragonfly in North America. It averages .75” to 1” (19.05 cm to 25.4 cm) in length. Reports of the species on Odonata Central are scattered from eastern Canada south through the eastern U.S. from New England to the Gulf states. However, N. bella is restricted almost exclusively to bogs, which are few and far between, difficult to access, and poorly protected within the species’ range. Read on to discover how Suzanne Winckler and her husband, David Smith set out to find the Elfin Skimmer in the boreal bogs of northeastern Minnesota on the western edge of its range where it is poorly known.
David and I spend ode season-–-summer-–-in northeastern Minnesota. One of our go-to resources is Kurt Mead’s Dragonflies of the North Woods. One day, when skimming through his guide, I said to David, “I want to see the Elfin Skimmer.”
Range map of the Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella) courtesy Odonata Central.
Besides its distinction as the smallest dragonfly in North America, the other lure of the Elfin Skimmer is where it is most likely to be found: in floating bogs with short vegetation. I love floating bogs! No other landscape is quite so magical to behold. No other landscape is quite so hilarious to try to walk around on. Who cares if these waterlogged places are often swarming with mosquitoes and deer flies in the summer?
Floating bog near Hibbing, Minnesota on July 25, 2022 where we found the Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella), photo copyright Suzanne Winckler.
David pinpointed a bog on Google Earth that appeared to require the least bushwhacking. Last summer, on July 25, we drove to state land near Hibbing, Minnesota, and found a highway pull-off to park. Within moments of walking on an old logging road through the forest, slogging a bit as the terrain got marshier, we came upon a glittering pond surrounded by sedge-covered hummocks of sphagnum. It was as if we had stepped through an invisible threshold into another realm. We squished into the bog and started scanning.
It seemed like only a few minutes. I was looking down, searching the bonsai forest of sphagnum moss, sedges, pitcher plants, Labrador tea, cottongrass, and cranberries, when, bam, an Elfin Skimmer spontaneously materialized three feet away. “David, David,” I said in a loud whisper, “Elfin Skimmer, Elfin Skimmer, female.” He squeegeed over my way.
I took my first photos. I looked at her through my binoculars. I simply stared at her with my naked eyes. She was vespine and so tiny. I’m talking Thumbelina tiny! She was smaller in length than the first joint of my thumb. Close-up photos fail to capture such tininess.
Female Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella), photo copyright Suzanne Winckler, near Hibbing, MN, July 25, 2022.
We regained our composure, sort of. We spent another couple of euphoric hours looking for odes, tallying a total of 11 species.
Calico Pennant (Celithemis elisa) male, one of 10 other species we saw besides Elfin Skimmer, photo copyright Suzanne Winckler, near Hibbing, MN, July 25, 2022.
Lyre-tipped Spreadwing (Lestes unguiculatus), another great odonate on our first search for Elfin Skimmer in northern Minnesota, July 25, 2022, photo copyright Suzanne Winckler.
As for the Elfin Skimmer, we encountered 12 females and 1 male.
This male Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella) perched next to a pitcher plant shows how truly tiny N. bella is. This individual was photographed by Suzanne Winckler on a subsequent visit to the bog near Hibbing, MN, on August 4, 2022. Photo copyright Suzanne Winckler.
As we slogged around in the floating bog, our rubber boots made sucking sounds every time we extracted a foot up out of the sphagnum to advance another unsteady step. Several times when I was poised on a mat of sphagnum photographing an odonate, I felt myself sinking and tilting at the same time. It crossed my mind that if I had been out there alone and not made some quick realignments, I would sink into the bog.
Perhaps I’d be found mummified 10,000 years hence by some archeologist. And no one would ever know I vanished in my quest to see an Elfin Skimmer.
Suzanne Winckler is a semi-retired journalist who shares an interest in the natural world with David Smith. They live in the woods in rural Minnesota, US, and in a small town in Sonora, Mexico.
