Marsh Dancer

Onychargia atrocyana · Order: Odonata · Family: Platycnemididae

Also called: Black Marsh Dart

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Marsh Dancer
Photo: Cheryl Stinchcomb, CC BY

The Marsh Dancer is a medium-sized damselfly with a velvet-black head and thorax, black-capped brown eyes, and yellow markings on the thorax and abdomen in younger stages. It breeds in forest ponds and marshes and is found across many Asian countries including Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

It has a velvet-black head and thorax, black-capped brown eyes, and narrow citron-yellow stripes on the thorax in sub-adult stages. The adult abdomen is black and unmarked, while younger individuals have narrow bluish rings on segments 3 to 6.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

It is a medium-sized damselfly.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

It breeds in ponds and marshes within forested areas.

Source: Wikipedia

More photos

Marsh Dancer photo 2
Photo: Oleg Kosterin, CC BY
Marsh Dancer photo 3
Photo: Utsav Biswas, CC BY-SA
Marsh Dancer photo 4
Photo: Cheryl Stinchcomb, CC BY
Marsh Dancer photo 5
Photo: Eddie Smith, CC BY

Same family (Platycnemididae)

Blue FeatherlegBlue FeatherlegPlatycnemis pennipesYellow featherlegsYellow featherlegsCopera marginipesOrange ThreadtailOrange ThreadtailNososticta solidaOrange FeatherlegOrange FeatherlegPlatycnemis acutipennisBlue Bush DartBlue Bush DartCopera vittataGoldtailGoldtailAllocnemis leucosticta

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychargia_atrocyana

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-24 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.