Seepage Dancer Damselfly Habitats: Wings at Rest Over Dark Abdomen

Summary: Jerky fliers in North American seepage dancer damselfly habitats from the Great Plains to the Atlantic and Gulf rest with wings over dark-tipped abdomens.

A seepage dancer damselfly (Argia bipunctulata) casts its shadow; Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, near Laurel, southern Maryland; Sunday, June 12, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American seepage dancer damselfly habitats assign cultivators waterlogged soils and naturalists distribution ranges in Atlantic and Gulf states from New Hampshire through Texas inland into Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Seepage dancers bear their common name as boggy seep-dwellers with bouncy, jerky, rough flight styles and the scientific name Argia bipunctulata (laziness [with] two small spots). Common names clinch the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose Executive Council commits three editors to journals and publications. Scientific designations draw upon descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), Königsberg, Prussia-born curator at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Seepage dancer damselfly life cycles expect abundant sedge along, and boggy, marshy edges to, flowing weedy ditches, small lakes, ponds and streams and sunny sphagnum seepages.

March through September function as maximum, most southerly flight seasons even though June through July furnish wildlife mapping opportunities for all coastal and inland habitat niches.

Adult female and male seepage dancer damselflies, unlike other dancer species, go for scattered, sedentary, solitary lifestyles from vertical perches on dense, near-ground-level, not surface-level, vegetation. They hunt as salliers by heading from grass stems into and out of dense vegetation after ground- or near-ground-level, motionless or moving, opportunistic or stalked prey. Adult life cycle stages involve perches on the sides of stems inclining toward water whereas other pond damsels such as bluets, identify with the side away.

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

Immature female and male seepage dancer damselflies keep to duller, lighter, more faded, paler colors than adult females and smaller sizes than mature females and males.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads seepage dancers from egg stages; through egg-hatched, immature, multi-molting larval, naiad or nymph stages that look like flightless, little adults; to mature stages. Adults rarely move far from bogs, lakes, marshes, ponds, seeps and streams where they forage, mate and tandem oviposit into surface or subsurface aquatic plant stems. Seepage dancers in 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 seepage dancer damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 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 seepage dancers.

Dark heads; brown-capped tan eyes; pale occipital bars; black-striped tan thoraxes; clear, dot-tipped wings; and black- and blue-segmented, black-tipped brown abdomens qualify as adult female hallmarks. Blue-eyed, blue-faced males reveal dark-topped heads; pale occipital bars; black-striped blue thoraxes; clear, dot-tipped wings; black lower and black-striped upper legs and black-blotched, black-ringed, blue-tipped abdomens. Adults show off 0.91- to 1.18-inch (23- to 30-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.71- to 0.94-inch (18- to 24-millimeter) abdomens and 0.51- to 0.71-inch (13- to 18-millimeter) hindwings.

Black-tipped, dark abdomens versus non-smooth flight and wings together above abdomens tell seepage dancers from bluets and other dancers in overlapping American seepage dancer damselfly habitats.

seepage dancer damselfly (Argia bipunctulata); Cedar Bog State Nature Preserve, near Urbana, Champaign County, west central Ohio; Saturday, July 23, 2016, 20:17:46: Andrew Cannizzaro (acryptozoo), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

A seepage dancer damselfly (Argia bipunctulata) casts its shadow; Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, near Laurel, southern Maryland; Sunday, June 12, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/27599922582/

seepage dancer damselfly; Cedar Bog State Nature Preserve, near Urbana, Champaign County, west central Ohio; Saturday, July 23, 2016, 20:17:46: Andrew Cannizzaro (acryptozoo), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/acryptozoo/27908157064/

For further information:

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Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3400

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Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

Hagen, Hermann (August). "32. A. bipunctulatum! Agrion bipunctulatum Hagen." Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America. With a List of the South American Species: 90. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. IV, art. I. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, July 1861.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1321227
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