Re: what colour is dragonfly blood?

After many years of pinning insects for collections including dragonflies, I never gave much thought to the color of the blood because I never saw much when doing the pinning. It seemed like a thick clear watery color would ooze out a little when pushing the pin in . They were already dead by being placed in a kill jar so I wasn't stabbing them to death. Also, growing up in Texas, I have stepped on an occasional cockroach and they never had much color in the mush left behind. I checked around and found this explanation about insect blood really explained it well.At Insects International: http://www.insectsinternational.com/

"Insect blood circulates nutrients and removes wastes from the body, but unlike most animals, insect blood plays little or no part in carrying oxygen through the body. Lacking the oxygen-carrying protein called hemoglobin, that gives the blood of humans and many other animals its red color, insect blood is usually colorless or a watery green. For oxygen circulation, insects rely on a set of branching, air-filled tubes called tracheae. These airways connect with the outside through circular openings called spiracles, which are sometimes visible as tiny "portholes" along the abdomen."

So the answer to your question is that dragonfly blood is sort of a clear greenish watery color. That said, the ladybug has stinky, bad tasting, orange-colored blood that it leaks out of its leg joints as a defense mechanism against predators. Insects are really interesting animals!