Calico Pennant Dragonfly, photo by jbnuthatch.

Wikipedia doesn’t have much to say about the Calico (or Elisa) Pennant, Celithemis elisa. The Calico Pennant Dragonfly – Celithemis elisa page at North American Insects and Spiders says that Calico Pennants are of the order Odonates and that:

Dragonflies have excellent eyesight. Their compound eyes have up to 30,000 facets, each of which is a separate light-sensing organ or ommatidium, arranged to give nearly a 360° field of vision, important for taking prey on the wing, as has done the female shown above. Odonates are completely harmless – they do not sting or bite. Indeed, they are beneficial in the same respect spiders and other predators are beneficial – they keep the burgeoning insect population in check..

Dragonflies are among the most ancient of living creatures. Fossil records, clearly recognizable as the ancestors of our present day odonates, go back to Carboniferous times which means that the insects were flying more than 300 million years ago, predating dinosaurs by over 100 million years and birds by some 150 million…

Dragonflies are the world’s fastest insects and, although estimates of their speed vary wildly, most credible authorities say they are capable of reaching speeds of between 30 and 60 km/h (19 to 38 mph). A study showed that dragonflies can travel as much as 85 miles in one day.

Here’s some more general information about dragonflies.

Check this photo out bigger or in John’s Critterz set (slideshow).