BOLLINGER COUNTY, Mo. (KFVS) - A rare dragonfly was found in southeast Missouri in June.

According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, the first-ever sighting of a male Hine’s emerald dragonfly marks a milestone in the state’s conservation efforts for this federally endangered species.

They say MDC staff and partners found the dragonfly during routine biological monitoring near a spring-fed wetland, called a Karst Fen, on private land in late June.

“The Hine’s emerald dragonfly is one of the rarest dragonflies in North America,” MDC Natural History Biologist Steve Schell said in a news release. “It wasn’t known from Missouri until 1999, and since then has only been documented from a handful of eastern Ozark counties.”

Because of its distance from other known sites, Schell said

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