Southern Spreadwing Damselfly Habitats: Shiny Thorax, Small Ovipositor

Summary: North American southern spreadwing damselfly habitats east and south of the Rockies to Atlantic and Gulf coasts get shiny thoraxes and small ovipositors.

southern spreadwing damselfly (Lestes australis) in Big Thicket Nature Preserve, near Kountze, Hardin County, southeastern Texas; Monday, April 20, 2015: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American southern spreadwing damselfly habitats affirm cultivation along lakes, marshes and ponds and naturalism through distribution ranges from the United States' Rockies eastward and southward through Atlantic and Gulf coastal states.

Southern spreadwings bear their common name as southerners with reposed wings at 45-degree angles, not closed over abdomens, and the scientific name Lestes australis (southern robber). Common names conjure up the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas concerning nonscientific names for the former common spreadwing species. Descriptions by Edmund Murton Walker (Oct. 5, 1877-Feb. 14, 1969), co-discoverer of icebugs with Takatsuna B. Kurata and entomologist from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, determine scientific designations.

Southern spreadwing damselfly lifespans expect ephemeral, fishless, somewhat shallow or permanent bogs, lakes, marshes or ponds with accessibly grassy, herbaceous and woody in-water and waterside vegetation.

March through January function as maximum, most southerly flight seasons even though May through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout all North American southern spreadwing niches.

Males gather on low perches atop grassy blades and herbaceous stems near the centers of slow-moving, somewhat shallow, still waters while females get together near shorelines. They hold additional, hidden perches within waterside grasses and shrubs before females head from morning fly-catching forages to afternoon watery breeding habitats and oviposition (egg-laying) sites. Long-spined, long legs involve female and male southern spreadwing damselflies in forages for flies and other flying insects in herbaceous terrestrial vegetation away from water bodies.

Ants, assassin flies, biting midges, ducks, falcons, flycatchers, frogs, grebes, lizards, spiders, turtles and water beetles, bugs and mites jeopardize North American southern spreadwing damselfly habitats.

Immature southern spreadwing damselflies keep to dull, faded, light, pale colors and lower size ranges even though immature males always know brown eyes and shoulder stripes.

Egg-hatched, immature, molted larval, naiad and nymph stages lead molted, shiny-winged, soft-bodied tenerals into two weeks of out-of-water sexual maturation and into 10- to 50-day adulthoods. Tandem adults manage six to 19 minutes each for two lifetime matings and hour-long manipulations of eggs into oviposition sites in emergent, tall standing reed stems. Pond spreadwings in the Lestidae spread-winged damselfly family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms.

North American southern spreadwing damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 to minus 3.88 degrees Celsius).

Beech, bellflower, birch, bladderwort, cattail, daisy, grass, greenbrier, heath, laurel, madder, maple, nettle, olive, pepperbush, pine, pondweed, rush, sedge, water-lily and willow families promote southern spreadwings.

Bronze to metallic green abdomens, brown eyes tingeing blue with maturity and pale tan-striped, metallic brown-black thoraxes with light yellow undersides qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal blue eyes and upper lips, bronze to metallic abdomens with blue-gray powder and metallic brown-black thoraxes with blue-brown shoulder stripes and white-yellow undersides. Adults show off 1.42- to 1.81-inch (36- to 46-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.10- to 1.42-inch (28- to 36-millimeter) abdomens and 0.71- to 0.98-inch (18- to 25-millimeter) hindwings.

Otherwise similar-looking northern and sweetflag spreadwings transmit dark, not metallic thoraxes and, for sweetflag females only, large ovipositors in overlapping North American southern spreadwing damselfly habitats.

southern spreadwing damselfly at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, northwestern Grayson County, northeastern Texas; Friday, April 15, 2016, 11:48:55: Laurie Sheppard/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Southwest Region, Public Domain, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

southern spreadwing damselfly (Lestes australis) in Big Thicket Nature Preserve, near Kountze, Hardin County, southeastern Texas; Monday, April 20, 2015: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/25934709655/

southern spreadwing damselfly at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, northwestern Grayson County, northeastern Texas; Friday, April 15, 2016, 11:48:55: Laurie Sheppard/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Southwest Region, Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_southwest/32528690441/

For further information:

Abbott, John C. Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and the South-Central United States: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Princeton NJ; Oxford UK: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Beaton, Giff. Dragonflies & Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast. Athens GA; London UK: University of Georgia Press, 2007.

Berger, Cynthia. Dragonflies. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books: Wild Guide, 2004.

Bright, Ethan. " Lestes disjunctus australis Walker, 1952: 59 -- Southern Spreadwing." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera Selys, 1854 > Lestidae, Calvert 1901 (Spreadwings) > Lestes Leach, 1815 (Pond Spreadwings).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Lestes disjunctus." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Lestidae > Lestes.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=4460

Paulson, Dennis. Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides, 2011.

> "The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/

Walker, E. M. (Edmund Murton). 1914. "A New Species of Orthopteran, Forming a New Genus and Family." The Canadian Entomologist, vol. XLVI: 93-99. London, Canada: The London Printing and Lithographing Company Ltd.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3089008

Walker, E. M. (Edmund Murton). June 1952. The Lestes Disjunctus and Forcipatus Complex (Odonata: Lestidae): Lestes d. australis new subspecies." Transactions of the American Entomological Society, vol. 78, no. 2 (June): 64-67.
Available via JSTOR @ https://www.jstor.org/stable/25077643?seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents