American Familiar Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Blue Bodies, Clear Wings

Summary: North American familiar bluet damselfly habitats in southeastern Canada and in the eastern United States revel in clear wings on bright blue bodies.

familiar bluet damselfly (Enallagma civile); Clark State Fishing Lake and Wildlife Area, Clark County, southwestern Kansas; uploaded Tuesday, July 9, 2013: Sarah Zukoff (entogirl), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North American familiar bluet damselfly habitats accede to arboriculture, master gardening and master naturalism in brackish, fresh and near-coastal vegetated wetlands in distribution ranges from southeastern Canada throughout the eastern United States.

Familiar bluets bear their common name as blue-bodied, widespread damselflies and the scientific name Enallagma civile (alternate-splinter mass) for black- and blue-striped abdomens and common abundance. Common names for familiar bluets, also called civil bluets, come about through the consensus of committees of scientists convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas. Scientific designations derive from descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), specialist  from Königsberg, Prussia, in damselflies, dragonflies and net-winged insects.

Familiar bluet damselfly lifespans expect emergent vegetation along backyard ornamental pools, brackish, near-coastal waters, lakes, marshes, permanent and temporary ponds, rivers, slow-flowing streams and young wetlands.

January through December function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though June through October furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout southeastern Canada and United States habitat niches.

Adult male familiar bluet damselflies gather at brackish or fresh, ephemeral or permanent, slow-moving or still, vegetated water sources from late in the morning through mid-afternoon. They halt for no courtship displays but instead head straight into tandem mating that always has its peak every day at midday with groups of females. Adult stages involve females and males in 20- to 45-minute tandem mating and two hours of 34-minute flights between 10- to 30-minute oviposits in plant tissues.

Bees, beetles, birds, carnivorous plants, eastern pondhawk dragonflies, fishing spiders, frogs, giant water bugs, lizards, robber flies and sunfish jeopardize North American familiar bluet damselfly habitats.

Immature familiar bluet damselflies keep to dull, faded, inconspicuous abdomen, eye, head, leg, thorax and wing colors and know brown body coloration as females and males.

Bluets live initially as naiads, hatchlings from rounded eggs laden with jelly-like substances and laid loosely in water, and subsequently as nymphs and post-nymph, pre-adult tenerals. Naiads manage underwater stages, through modified jaws that muster prey into mouths for quick mastication and multiple molts, before moving away for molted, waterside, winged maturity. Coenagrionidae (field) pond damselfly family members need aquatic fly larvae, flies, flying ants, freshwater shrimp, leaf-hoppers, mayfly larvae, mosquito larvae, moths, sweet potato white-flies and termites.

North American familiar bluet damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges from minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 degrees Celsius) to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.44 degrees Celsius).

Algae, leaves, roots and upright stems that provide plant tissue for egg-laying and water depths for plunging from plummeting temperatures promote familiar bluet damselfly life cycles.

Black central and dorsal-striped abdomens, dorsal- and shoulder-striped thoraxes and eyes, blue eyespots and blue, brown-tan and green body coloration and transparent wings quicken female identifications. Males reveal black dorsal- and shoulder-striped blue thoraxes, black eyes, black ring-banded blue abdomens, blue eyespots, long, mated female-restraining, secondary appendages called cerci and transparent wings. Adults showcase 1.14- to 1.54-inch (29- to 39-millimeter) total head-body lengths, 0.91- to 1.34-inch (23- to 34-millimeter) abdomens and 0.63- to 0.83-inch (16- to 21-millimeter) hindwings.

Abdominal colors, eyespot shapes and sizes and male-clasper shapes track similar-looking boreal, Hagen's, marsh, northern and vernal bluets in overlapping North American familiar bluet damselfly habitats.

A familiar bluet damselfly (Enallagma civile) consumes a small moth; Amistad National Recreation Area, Val Verde County, Texas; Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005, 19:14: Clinton & Charles Robertson (Charles & Clint) from Del Rio, Texas, and College Station, Texas, USA, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, 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:

familiar bluet damselfly (Enallagma civile); Clark State Fishing Lake and Wildlife Area, Clark County, southwestern Kansas; uploaded Tuesday, July 9, 2013: Sarah Zukoff (entogirl), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/entogirl/9253316956/

A familiar bluet damselfly (Enallagma civile) consumes a small moth; Amistad National Recreation Area, Val Verde County, Texas; Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005, 19:14: Clinton & Charles Robertson (Charles & Clint) from Del Rio, Texas, and College Station, Texas, USA, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enallagma_civile_eating_moth.jpg: Clinton & Charles Robertson (Charles & Clint), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/20087733@N00/48675902/

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. "Enallagma civile (Hagen, 1861: 88 -- as Agrion) -- Familiar Bluet." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera, Selys, 1854 > Coenagrionidae, Kirby, 1890 (Pond Damselflies) > Enallagma Selys, 1875 (Bluets).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Enallagma civile." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Coengrionidae > Enallagma.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3654

Hagen, Hermann. "28. A. civile! Agrion civile Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America, With a List of the South American Species: 88. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. IV, art. I. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, July 1861.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1321225
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t32241f34?urlappend=%3Bseq=123

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