Scientific name: Trithemis arteriosa
Geographic location: Kenya, Africa
Artist: Jessa Huebing-Reitinger
Medium: Oil on canvas 108” x 90” 2004
Performance venue: Union Station, Kansas City, MO. USA

“Rusty” the dragonfly is indigenous to Kenya, Africa. An entomologist captured the specimen in 1987 and since then it has faded to a reddish-brown. Dragonflies can be found all over the world. There are over 4000 known species that come in a wide spectrum of colors. Dragonflies start out as an egg attached to plants underwater. From there, the nymph lives underwater for up to three years, until they emerge and shed their exoskeleton to take flight as an adult. They primarily eat mosquitoes and flies once air bound.

Jessa was given the specimen from the Kansas State Insect Zoo and took a mere five weeks to create the portrait. Jessa chose to paint Rusty in an oblique position. Dragonflies will often raise their abdomen to the sun in order to reduce body surface area which prevents over heating. If you look closely at Rusty’s wings you will notice that they are not a mirror image of one another but instead each is unique, similar to our fingerprints.