On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 14:26:22 -0700, "bobkiely"
wrote:

While I was out looking at my greening lily leaves, one of my favorite
creatures came flying by and landed on the cattail fronds. This is a
magnificent specimen as his body is about 1/2" wide and about 3" long and is
the brightest organgish-red you can imagine. He looks like he just came from
the paint shop and somebody has been waxing him for hours.

I've been looking for a photograph of him or his species for a 1/2 hour on
the www and nothing I found comes close to the color of this guy.

The other day when I was out there, he was there and a smaller miniature
version of him was there also...this one was a brilliant indigo blue.

One of the reasons I went to the internet before was to see if I could find
any data on the life cycle of dragon flies as I know this will sound stupid
but there was an exact replica of this guy who frequented my pond last year.
Couldn't be the same one could it? Remember, I'm in southern California - no
freezing allowed here. (At least at my elevation.)

http://powell.colgate.edu/wda/Beginners_Guide.htm

(iv) Life expectancy.
The average life expectancy of the adult odonate depends on the part
of the world in which it lives. Generally speaking, in temperate zones
the largest portion of an odonate's lifetime, which may amount to
several years, is spent in the larval stage while the adult phase is
one or two months. In species common to the tropics and subtropics,
however, larval development may be reduced to a few months and the
adult stage may last a full year.

I looked for pictures typing in "California dragonflies" and got a lot
of links to buy books, but no good pictures.