Stout Pintail

Acisoma inflatum · Order: Odonata · Family: Libellulidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Stout Pintail
Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY-SA

Males have bright turquoise eyes and a pale-blue body heavily mottled with black, while females show the same pattern but with a dull yellow-brown wash on the abdomen and front thorax. It lives around calm, grassy water bodies such as ponds and pans across much of Africa, with isolated populations in Algeria, Egypt and Libya.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

Males have bright turquoise eyes and a pale-blue body heavily mottled with black patterns. Females retain the pale blue and black mottling but their abdomen and front thorax are washed yellow-brown, making them duller.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Males display bright turquoise eyes and a pale-blue, black-mottled coloration.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

It looks very similar to the slender pintail (Acisoma variegatum) and they often share the same areas. Their distributions overlap in southern and eastern Africa.

Source: Wikipedia

More photos

Stout Pintail photo 2
Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY-SA
Stout Pintail photo 3
Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY-SA
Stout Pintail photo 4
Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY
Stout Pintail photo 5
Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY-SA

Same family (Libellulidae)

Blue DasherBlue DasherPachydiplax longipennisEastern PondhawkEastern PondhawkErythemis simplicicollisCommon WhitetailCommon WhitetailPlathemis lydiaWidow SkimmerWidow SkimmerLibellula luctuosaAutumn MeadowhawkAutumn MeadowhawkSympetrum vicinumCommon DarterCommon DarterSympetrum striolatum

Sources

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

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

Text written 2026-10-23 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-23.

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.