A Year of Native Animals: Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly
In 2026, Friends of the Chicago River invited people across the Chicago-Calumet River system to make Wild River Resolutions, a yearlong reminder to discover, celebrate, and protect the wildlife that depends on a healthy river. Throughout the year, we are highlighting 12 native animals, one each month, that call the 156-mile river system home.
Designed to both educate and inspire, Wild River Resolutions connects people to the species living in and along the river while spotlighting simple, everyday actions that support a healthy, biodiverse, and accessible river system for all people, water, and wildlife.
March – Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana)
The Hines emerald dragonfly, once relatively common in the region but now endangered, is a large dragonfly found in calcareous (high in calcium carbonate) spring fed marshes and sedges meadows overlaying dolomite rock. They measure approximately 2½–3 inches in length and have brilliant emerald-green eyes, a metallic green thorax featuring two distinct yellow stripes, and a dark, slender abdomen. Highly effective predators, dragonflies can fly forwards, backwards, up and down, and hover and they can pinpoint insects an 1/8 of a mile away and catch them. Friends and the Forest Preserves of Cook County restored over 425 acres in the Crooked Creek subwatershed that particularly benefits Hine’s emerald dragonflies and red headed woodpeckers while capturing more stormwater and other benefits to the preserve and to the people who visit it.
Listen to an interview with Marla Garrison, a renowned dragonfly and damselfly expert, on our Inside, Out & About podcast.
