Dragonflies are fierce predators that eat a wide variety of insects. However, predators can easily become prey, as was the case with this male Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) that encountered a Black and Yellow Garden Orbweaver Spider (Argiope aurantia). When I spotted this pair last Friday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, the spider had already immobilized the dragonfly and may have been injecting it with venom at that moment.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Interesting Capture Mike! Both for you photographically & the spider for a meal!😊
Thanks, Reed. Spiders have to eat too. I don’t know how much of a meal that a spider gets from a dragonfly, but it definitely made for an interesting photo.
Caught in action…. Awesome clarity as always…. Nice capture Mike!!
Nature at work. Nice image, Mike.
Amazing photo!! Wow. 👍😊
Yikes! This is an awesome photo and really neat when I make it bigger! I feel bad for the dragonfly. I guess the dragonfly flew into the orb-weaver spider’s web and got trapped. This spider kind of looks like the Yellow Garden Spiders that live around Gem’s house. It is yellow and black and it is an orb-weaver too. We see flies and bugs caught in the webs but never anything as big as the dragonfly. I wonder if a dragonfly would catch a spider and eat it? I think that dragonflies catch their food in their feet while they are flying so maybe they don’t bother spiders. Thank you, Mr. Mike! Bye!
Hey, Benjamin. I think this is the same spider as the ones that you see around Gem’s house. They have a lot of different names by which they are known. In addition to dragonflies, I have also seen a cicada and butterflies caught in spider webs. You correctly described how dragonflies catch their prey. I think it is theoretically possible that a dragonfly could eat a spider since I saw this YouTube video of a damselfly eating a spider after it got caught in the spider’s web (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv5AdRk30gU). A few years ago I photographed a jumping spider eating a dragonfly, which is kind of amazing, because jumping spiders do not build webs. Instead they jump onto their prey. Check out my blog posting to see some really cool photos of that encounter (https://michaelqpowell.com/2014/05/27/spider-captures-dragonfly-the-story/)
A good, high-protein catch for the spider. These orb weavers are the stars of the garden right now.
I am not sure how much meat there is in a dragonfly body, but I believe the spider liquifies it and then sucks it all out with its hollow fangs.
It’s a spider eat dragonfly world out there. Nice catch, Mike. I’ve not seen a spider with a dragonfly so this seems rather unique. I’ve a couple of good size spiders making webs in the yard lately but their catch is mostly small crambid moths of which we have lots. Spider crambid control. 🙂
Thanks, Steve. I have seen spiders like this one catch full-sized butterflies including Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtails. I am pretty sure that they will take whatever they can snag in their webs.
Sticky spider! I saw downy feathers in a web at our house this week!
Yikes. I wonder where the feathers came from.
Likely our bird feeder nearby? Blowin’ in the wind?
That makes sense. Spider webs can be pretty sticky, as I have found out by running into them face-first as I walk through the woods. 🙂
This is a first for me, Mike! Fabulous photo of the event, too!
Thanks, Pete. I’ve seen spiders with captured dragonflies a few times, including, surprisingly, a jumping spider, which does not make a web. (https://michaelqpowell.com/2014/05/27/spider-captures-dragonfly-the-story/)
Wow! Interesting how the dragonfly has been packaged.
I too was fascinated by the way that the body was bent and wrapped up. It looks like the spider was unable or felt it was not necessary to wrap up the wings.
Wow!
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Nature can be harsh, but spiders have to eat too,
True, so true. LOL!
Great photo! I’ve never seen a spider capture something that large.
Thanks. I am amazed at the size prey that spiders manage to capture. A few years ago I captured an image of a similar spider with a Monarch butterfly. https://michaelqpowell.com/2017/08/21/spider-and-monarch/
“Encountered” is a very mild way of putting it. Both are beautiful in their own way, and both are integral parts in the inevitable circle of life.