Purple Skimmer

Libellula jesseana adults are about 5 centimeters long. The male is pruinescent blue on the thorax and abdomen with orange wings. The female may have a similar coloration to the male, or have a golden hue overall identical to Libellula auripennis, the golden-winged skimmer.

Libellula jesseana is limited to ten counties in the panhandle and northern peninsula of Florida. There is a protected population at Gold Head Branch State Park in Clay County. Most other populations receive no protection. L. jesseana occurs at infertile, clear, sandy-bottomed lakes with shoreline stands of maidencane (Panicum hemitomon) and sometimes sedges and St. John's worts. The adults require open woodland or shrub-land nearby for foraging.

Purple skimmer nymphs feed on nearly all small invertebrate organisms in their aquatic environment, and the adults catch insects that they locate visually.

Adult purple skimmers are diurnal. The life cycle last approximately one year, with nymphs over-wintering and adults flying from mid-April through mid-September.