Biology laboratories are usually designed around convenient and available subjects. For example, for animal laboratories "Daphnia magna," "Drosophila melanogaster," frogs, rats, and mice are common animals that are relatively easy to obtain, relatively cheap, and consequently lend themselves well to laboratory experimentation. On many campuses, however, a body of water exists--either in the form of a creek or small pond--and this water attracts numerous animals that have tremendous potential as subjects for teaching and learning. Chief among these animals are the dragonflies and damselflies. In this paper, focusing primarily on dragonflies, the author explains why dragonflies make great subjects, gives some practical advice for using them in teaching, and provides a few specific examples of how he has used them in his introductory zoology, upper-division animal behavior, and non-majors environmental life science classes. (Contains 5 figures and 2 tables.)