How Long Do Dragonflies Live? Years as Nymphs, Weeks as Adults

The dragonfly life cycle in three stages

Dragonflies have an incomplete metamorphosis with three stages: egg, nymph (also called a naiad or larva) and adult. Unlike butterflies, they have no pupa. The nymph simply grows larger with each molt and then changes into an adult in a single dramatic final molt.

The figures vary widely, because water temperature and food supply strongly affect how fast a nymph grows. The same species can develop in one year in a warm, southern pond and take two or three years in a cold northern lake.

How long do dragonfly nymphs live?

The nymph is the longest stage of a dragonfly’s life. A nymph lives underwater, breathing with gills inside its rectum, and hunts insects, worms, tadpoles and even small fish. It molts its skin many times as it grows, often a dozen or so times.

Some examples show how much the timing varies:

• Wandering glider (Pantala flavescens). This globe-trotting dragonfly lays its eggs in warm, short-lived pools, and its nymphs can complete development in roughly two months.
• Common green darner (Anax junius). Nymphs develop in a few months in the south and in about a year in the north, depending on the generation.
• Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator). In Europe, nymphs usually take one year, but sometimes two in cooler sites.
• Golden-ringed dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii). Nymphs live buried in the sand and silt of cool streams in Europe for about two to five years before emerging.

Slow growth in cold, food-poor water is the main reason some species take so long. The nymph stage is also the main survival test: fish, birds, frogs, water beetles and other nymphs eat many of them, so only a small share of eggs ever become flying adults.

How long do adult dragonflies live?

When a nymph is fully grown, it climbs out of the water onto a plant stem or rock, splits its skin along the back and pulls itself out, leaving an empty skin called an exuvia. The new adult pumps fluid into its crumpled wings, which dry and harden over an hour or more. At this soft, pale stage it is called a teneral adult.

The young adult then spends a few days to two weeks maturing, often away from water, before its full colors appear and it is ready to breed. After that, a typical adult in the wild lives a few weeks.

Studies that mark and recapture dragonflies show that average adult life is often short, commonly a week or two after maturity, because predators such as birds, spiders and other dragonflies take a heavy toll. Most species have a maximum adult life of about five weeks, and some large species can live up to about ten weeks. Bad weather can also shorten adult lives, since dragonflies need sunshine and warmth to fly and feed.

Do damselflies live as long as dragonflies?

Damselflies follow the same pattern but are often on the shorter end. Many have nymph stages of a few months to a year, and adults often live one to three weeks.

There is a striking exception in Europe. The winter damselflies of the genus Sympecma emerge in late summer and spend the winter as adults, hidden among dry vegetation. They breed the following spring, so an adult can live for around ten to eleven months, by far the longest adult life of any European odonate. To learn how to tell the two groups apart, see dragonfly vs damselfly.

How do dragonflies survive the winter?

In Europe and most of North America, dragonflies cannot survive the winter as active adults. Instead they get through the cold season in other ways:

• As nymphs. Most species spend the winter underwater, where the water stays above freezing below the ice. They feed slowly and resume growing in spring.
• As eggs. Some darters (Sympetrum) and spreadwing damselflies lay eggs that wait out the winter and hatch in spring.
• By migrating. A few North American species, including the common green darner, fly south in fall. Their offspring may return north in spring, so the yearly cycle spans several generations.

Why do adults live such a short time?

From an evolutionary point of view, the adult dragonfly is the stage for breeding and spreading to new waters. The long-lived nymph does most of the growing, and the adult’s job is to find a mate and lay eggs before predators or bad weather end its life.

Adults are still busy eaters. They feed heavily on flying insects to fuel their flight and to build up eggs, as described in what do dragonflies eat?

Myths about dragonfly lifespans

“Dragonflies live for just one day.” This popular claim fits mayflies far better. Adult mayflies often live only hours to a day or two, while adult dragonflies live for weeks.

“Dragonflies are ancient, so they must be long-lived.” Dragonflies and their relatives belong to one of the oldest groups of flying insects, and giant dragonfly-like insects called griffenflies flew more than 300 million years ago. But an ancient lineage says nothing about an individual’s lifespan, which remains a few weeks in the air after months or years in the water.