Tag: dragonfly

Bug o’the Week – the Dragonflies

Bug o’the Week

Early Summer Scenes the Dragonflies

Greetings, BugFans,

Spring was long and cool, an arrangement that the BugLady usually applauds (she savors every little step into spring, and she doesn’t like it when the phenology of six weeks is squished into one or two).  But this year bordered on the ridiculous.  Water warms slowly and steadily (those of us that live in the air often experience dramatic daily fluctuations), so a cold spring means that dragonfly and damselfly naiads, which grow up underwater, are slow to wake up and consume those final calories before emerging as adults.  All of which is a roundabout way of saying that dragonflies and damselflies have been a little late this year, but with some dedicated stalking, the BugLady found some cool things as summer neared, including many tender, young, recently-emerged odonates.

EASTERN PONDHAWK WITH MITES: When the BugLady first saw this dragonfly, she thought that for some reason his abdomen had gotten muddy, but a peek through the camera lens revealed that he was carrying a huge load of water mites.  Adult water mites are (mostly) free swimming carnivores, but they go through a tick-like nymphal stage in which they attach to and feed on other aquatic invertebrates (see their story at https://uwm.edu/field-station/water-mite-redux/). 

EXUVIA ON POTAMOGETON: The leaves and flower stalks of aquatic plants in the genus Potamogeton are dragon and damselfly magnets.  Here, a female Violet/Variable Dancer damselfly stands on a leaf as she oviposits in an underwater stem.  The empty damselfly skins (exuvia) that decorate the flower stalk show that it has been a busy place.   

EASTERN FORKTAIL: A female Eastern Forktail damselfly oviposits directly into the flower stalk.  The stalk will sink, and when her eggs hatch, her young will swim out into the water.

COMMON WHITETAIL: A recently-emerged female Common Whitetail dragonfly crawled out of the water, climbed 15” up the river bank, and then trekked another two feet across mown grass to find the perfect spot to stop and gather strength for her life in the air.  Dragonflies may take a few days to achieve their mature coloration – here’s what she’ll look like when the spots on her wings intensify https://bugguide.net/node/view/7160, and here’s the male https://bugguide.net/node/view/27710. 

RACKET-TAILED EMERALD: These very inquisitive dragonflies fly back and forth above the trail as you walk along.  When the sun is at your back, the glowing eyes of an approaching emerald are a religious experience! 

Slender Bluet
Marsh Bluet

SLENDER BLUET DAMSELFLY:  Bluets can be a confusing bunch of damselflies.  Some species are very distinct – one is neon blue at one end and yellow at the other, one is rainbow-colored, one is orange, and a few Eastern species are red.  But for many of the blue and black species, scrutinizing the male’s rear appendages is the best way to identify them (the Marsh Bluet terminates in a tiny pipe wrench).  You can narrow the field by eyeballing the comparative amounts of blue and black on the abdomen and putting them into the “blue-type,” “black-type,” or “intermediate-type” category.  This young male, who is in what BugFan Bob calls “that embarrassing purple stage,” will be a spectacular black-type bluet when he matures https://bugguide.net/node/view/1613844/bgimage.  And one of these days, the Slender Bluet will get a BOTW of its own.

DOT TAILED WHITEFACE: Not long out of the water, this Dot-tailed Whiteface clings to its shed skin (which clings to an Equisetum stalk) as it pumps up its wings.

DRAGONFLY DOW (dead on the water): Whether it was chased by a predator or just miscalculated, this dragonfly got too close to the water and adhered to its sticky surface film.  Beautiful even in death, its body is returning nutrients to the pond that nurtured it.

COMMON GREEN DARNER: Common Green Darners, one of our biggest dragonflies, are with us from May through September.  Wisconsin has two populations – migratory and resident.  Migratory darners like these, photographed in early May, arrive from the southeastern part of the US, mate, and put their eggs into the water, and their naiads develop during the summer.  About the time these early birds are wearing out (mid-June), the resident population begins to emerge, and they fill the skies until the end of summer.  The migrants emerge as adults at the end of August, and fly south, leaving no eggs in the ponds, but the eggs of the resident population overwinter under the ice.  A dragonfly do-si-do.

AMERICAN RUBYSPOT: Dragonflies and damselflies are fascinating, and they do some amazing things.  They can be a challenge to photograph and to identify, and some are just plain beautiful! 

RIVER JEWELWING: River Jewelwings are much less common where the BugLady lives than are the spectacular Ebony Jewelwings (https://bugguide.net/node/view/1840629/bgimage), so she was thrilled to get a picture of one.  Jewelwings and Rubyspots are members of the Broad-winged damselfly family Calopterygidae (which means “beautiful wing”), and they’re sometimes called river damsels because of their preferred haunts. 

SKIMMING BLUETS: The BugLady aimed her camera at an odd-looking configuration on a water lily leaf and saw one-and-a-half damselflies.  Apparently, a male and female were flying in tandem when a hungry bird came along and bit off the female’s abdomen.  When the pair landed, two Mesovelid bugs (aggressive scavengers and predators), sensed “blood in the water” and zipped in to sip her bodily fluids (hemolymph).  Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water….

Go outside – look for dragonflies!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Painted Skimmer Dragonflies

Bug o’the Week

Early Summer Scenes the Dragonflies

Greetings, BugFans,

Spring was long and cool, an arrangement that the BugLady usually applauds (she savors every little step into spring, and she doesn’t like it when the phenology of six weeks is squished into one or two).  But this year bordered on the ridiculous.  Water warms slowly and steadily (those of us that live in the air often experience dramatic daily fluctuations), so a cold spring means that dragonfly and damselfly naiads, which grow up underwater, are slow to wake up and consume those final calories before emerging as adults.  All of which is a roundabout way of saying that dragonflies and damselflies have been a little late this year, but with some dedicated stalking, the BugLady found some cool things as summer neared, including many tender, young, recently-emerged odonates.

Painted Skimmers are in the Skimmer family Libellulidae, which contains many of our more common and more colorful dragonflies, and they’re in the genus Libellula – large, sturdy, showy dragonflies, often with dramatically-patterned wings, that are often referred to as the King skimmers.  King skimmers have appeared in these pages before https://uwm.edu/field-station/closed-for-june-spectacular-summer-dragonflies/, https://uwm.edu/field-station/four-spotted-skimmer/, and https://uwm.edu/field-station/slaty-skimmer-dragonfly/ (Chalk-fronted Corporals are sometimes included in the group, too https://uwm.edu/field-station/chalk-fronted-corporal-dragonfly/).

They look like a dragonfly that was put together by a committee.  Their wing spots are similar to, but fainter than, those of a Halloween Pennant (all the Painted Skimmer write-ups say “see also: Halloween Pennant” https://bugguide.net/node/view/1996897/bgimage), and their abdomen looks a lot like that of a Four-spotted Skimmer, an early-flying dragonfly whose wing spots are much smaller https://bugguide.net/node/view/1220037/bgimage.  Female Painted Skimmers https://bugguide.net/node/view/1664464/bgimage are duller in color, with wider abdomens than males https://bugguide.net/node/view/1665876/bgimage.  They often look golden in flight.  There are many wonderful photos of Painted Skimmers online, but not much in the way of biographies.

Painted Skimmers (Libellula semifasciata) occur only rarely in Wisconsin (they’re a “Most Wanted” species here).  They’re on dragonfly checklists from Texas to Florida to Maine to Ontario, becoming rarer as you travel farther north, and they’re at the edge of their range here in Wisconsin.  They’re one of the fifteen-or-so species of North American Odonates that migrate (out of our 450-ish species), moving both north and south along the Atlantic Coast as well as inland.   They arrive in the north early (one source said that many of the first arrivals are mature males); they often stay just long enough to get people excited (birders will sympathize); and they’re more numerous some years than others.  According to the Wisconsin Odonata Survey database https://wiatri.net/inventory/odonata/, they’ve been recorded in only seven of the years since 2000, and 2022 is the only year that they’ve been seen in multiple locations (five so far).  When the Bug Lady was looking into that, she found this handy list http://texasento.net/migration.htm. 

One source described them as widespread and relatively common but not often seen, due to their early flight period (they usually show up in June and July, so the influx of Painted Skimmers in 2022 is early) and to their habitat preferences.  They frequent shallow, plant-filled, marshy, woodland ponds, pools, seasonal puddles, and sometimes bogs and slow-moving streams, but they may hunt for food far from water.  Like all dragonflies, their aquatic young (naiads) (“nymphs,” if you must, but never “larvae”) eat the small invertebrates that they find next to them below the water’s surface, and the adults feed on flying insects.  Painted Skimmer dragonflies perch on twigs and fly out to “hawk” small insects. 

The Dragonflies of Northern Virginia website calls them both less aggressive and more wary than other King skimmers.  

Males patrol territories and watch for females from perches on twigs or grass tips three to six feet above the water.  They mate (briefly) in mid-air, he releases her, and Paulson, in Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East, tells us that “Females oviposit in low flight by vigorous and well-spaced tapping and moving some distance between groups of a few taps.”  Males often patrol as she oviposits in order to protect her (and his genetic material) from being nabbed by rival males.

In her search for information, the BugLady turned up the comment on the Northern Virginia Dragonfly website (on two different pages) that “Some dragonflies have partially translucent abdomens (Painted Skimmers) and many others have dark wing patches at the base of their wings (saddlebags and pennants) – both may be anatomical adaptations to absorbing sunlight and channeling that heat to their organs and wing muscles.”  She suspects that means that the dragonfly’s cuticle allows some light to pass through, and not that you can hold up a Painted Skimmer and see daylight through it.  She couldn’t find any other sources to back that up.

Go outside – keep your eyes peeled.  Things are popping!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

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