Blue-Ringed Dancer Damselfly Habitats: Blue Brown Thorax, Pale Ovipositor

Summary: North American blue-ringed dancer damselfly habitats from the coast east through the Southwest and Mexico get blue brown thoraxes and pale ovipositors.

blue-ringed dancer damselfly (Argia sedula); Chester F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area, Kelly's Ford, Culpepper and Fauquier counties, Northern Virginia; July 7, 2012: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

North American blue-ringed dancer damselfly habitats assemble cultivators and naturalists in distribution ranges from Rhode Island through Mexico, through Missouri and Arkansas, Nebraska through Oklahoma, Colorado through New Mexico, Nevada and California.

Blue-ringed dancers bear their common name for blue rings on male abdomens and for bouncy, non-smooth flight and the scientific name Argia sedula (laziness [is] persistent). Common names channel scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, host to the seventh International Congress of Odonatology, July 28, 2012-Aug. 2, 2013. Descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), son of socio-economist Carl Heinrich Hagen (July 29, 1785-Dec. 16, 1856), decide scientific designations.

Blue-ringed dancer damselfly life cycles expect ditches, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams with dense, floating or streamside vegetation or open, rocky shores and with gentle currents.

January through December function as maximum, most southerly flight seasons even though June through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities for North American coastal and inland niches.

Male blue-ringed dancers go to streamside perches on herbaceous vegetation rather than on shoreline rocks while females go to open ground or low-lying vegetation near water. Both genders hunt like sallying broadwings, clubtails, skimmers and spreadwings, not like hawking darners, emeralds and glider and saddlebag skimmers or like other gleaning pond damsels. Bright, sunny weather incites blue-ringed dancers from immobile indolence in shade to imprisoning within black legs and projectable, retractable mouthparts air, ground and plant opportunistic passersby.

Ants, biting midges, ducks, falcons, flycatchers, fish, frogs, grebes, lizards, robber flies, spiders, turtles and water beetles and mites jeopardize North American blue-ringed dancer damselfly habitats.

Immature blue-ringed dancer damselflies keep to dull, faded, light, pale colors and lower size ranges even though adult females know greater body dimensions than mature males.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads blue-ringed dancers from dead floating or live herbaceous stems to egg-hatched, immature, multi-molting larvae, naiads or nymphs and shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying teneral stages. Adults manage 10- to 15-minute matings and tandem ovipositing during sexually mature life cycle stages from four or five days to a maximum of two weeks. Dancer members of the Coenagrionidae pond damsel family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms.

North American blue-ringed dancer damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to 15.55 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 blue-ringed dancers.

Amber-brown-tinted wings lack pale heads; brown eyes; hairline-striped brown thoraxes with blue-green-plated wing bases; brown abdomens with blue-green rings and sides qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black heads and legs; blue eyes with post-ocular spots; black- and blue-striped thoraxes; black side-striped, blue-ringed abdomens blue-graying in cold and during mating. Adults show off 1.18- to 1.49-inch (30- to 38-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.98- to 1.18-inch (25- to 30-millimeter) abdomens and 0.71- to 0.94-inch (18- to 24-millimeter) hindwings.

Brown thoraxes, pale ovipositors and two blue thoracic colors tell male and female blue-ringed dancers from other dancers in overlapping North American blue-ringed dancer damselfly habitats.

blue-ringed dancer damselfly (Argia sedula); Ocmulgee River boat ramp, Juliette, Monroe County, west central Georgia; Aug. 21, 2012: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

blue-ringed dancer damselfly (Argia sedula); Chester F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area, Kelly's Ford, Culpepper and Fauquier counties, Northern Virginia; July 7, 2012: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue-ringed_Dancer_-_Argia_sedula,_C_F_Phelps_Wildlife_Management_Area,_Kelly%27s_Ford,_Virginia.jpg

blue-ringed dancer damselfly (Argia sedula); Ocmulgee River boat ramp, Juliette, Monroe County, west central Georgia; Aug. 21, 2012: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue-ringed_Dancer_-_Argia_sedula,_Ocmulgee_boat_ramp,_Juliette,_Georgia.jpg

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: and Oxford UK: Princeton University Press, 2005.

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

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

Bright, Ethan. "Argia sedula (Hagen, 1861: 94 as Agrion) -- Blue-ringed Dancer." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera Selys, 1854 > Coenagrionidae, Kirby, 1890 (Pond Damselflies) > Argia Rambur, 1842 (Dancers).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Argia sedula." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Coenagrionidae > Argia.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3481

Hagen, Hermann. "40. A. sedulum! Agrion sedulum Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America. With a List of the South American Species: 94. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. IV, art. I. Translated from Latin to English by Philip Reese Uhler. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, July 1861.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1321231
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t32241f34?urlappend=%3Bseq=129

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/