American Powdered Dancer Damselfly Habitats: Big Body, Wide Stigma

Summary: North American powdered dancer damselfly habitats from the Atlantic and Gulf to the Southwest and Mexico get big bodies and stigmas wider than wing cells.

blue form female powdered dancer damselfly (Argia moesta); Prince William Forest Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Thursday, July 26, 2012, 15:08: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

North American powdered dancer damselfly habitats allow cultivators clean waters and naturalists distribution ranges from Atlantic and Gulf coastlines through Iowa, Minnesota and Ontario and the Great Plains, the Southwest and Mexico.

Powdered dancers bear their common name from powdery-looking wax coating bodies with age and the scientific name Argia moesta (Laziness [in] mourning [because of dark color]). Common names correspond to scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose quarterly news journal circulates to members and peer-reviewed bulletin by subscription. Scientific designations disseminate descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), pharmaceutical chemist Karl Gottfried Hagen's (Dec. 24, 1749-Mar. 2, 1829) grandson.

Powdered dancer damselfly life cycles expect muddy-, rocky- or sandy-bottomed, swift-flowing canals, lakes, rivers and streams with emergent stones, open or wooded banks and rocky shores.

January through December function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though June through September furnish wildlife mapping opportunities for all Canadian, Mexican and United States' niches.

Female and male powdered dancers get to 246.06- to 492.13-foot (75- to 150-meter) waterside territories while the latter also go for in-water and shoreline rocky perches. Males hold wings alongside, not above, abdomens while hanging onto less hidden perches and hover over open waters with heads in upstream directions into the wind. Adults immobilize food sources during sallies from perches after opportunistic passersby and for stalked prey even during odonate-unfriendly temperatures above 98.6-plus degrees Fahrenheit (37-plus degrees Celsius).

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

Immature males keep to brown eyes, faces, heads and legs, brown thoraxes with thick or thin black stripes and pale-ringed brown abdomens with black-striped pale segments.

Powdered dancers live as egg-hatched, multi-molting larvae, naiads or nymphs, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals sexually mature in two weeks and adults for three to four weeks. Adults manage 14- to 31-minute midafternoon matings, three- to 49-minute ovipositing searches and 37- to 67-minute manipulations of eggs into dead, live, submerged or surface plants. Dancer members 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 powdered dancer damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, north- to south-ward, from minus 45 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to 21.11 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 powered dancers.

Blue, brown or green heads and thoraxes, brown eyes, brown-striped, pale-ringed, pale-sided abdomens and fine or narrow and wide thoracic stripes qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black-striped, gray-powdered, pale-ringed, brown thoraxes with parallel thin and wide black shoulder stripes, brown eyes and heads, dark-striped legs and gray-powdered brown faces. Adults show off 1.46- to 1.65-inch (37- to 42-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.10- to 1.46-inch (28- to 37-millimeter) abdomens and 0.87- to 1.14-inch (22- to 29-millimeter) hindwings.

Big sizes and stigma (colored cells) wider than surrounding wing cells tell powdered dancers from other dancers and damselflies in overlapping American powdered dancer damselfly habitats.

male powdered dancer damselfly (Argia moesta); Prince William Forest Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Thursday, July 26, 2012, 15:02: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 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:

blue form female powdered dancer damselfly (Argia moesta); Prince William Forest Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Thursday, July 26, 2012, 15:08: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powdered_Dancer_(blue_form_female)_-_Argia_moesta,_Prince_William_Forest_Park,_Woodbridge,_Virginia.jpg; Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/7652616676/

male powdered dancer damselfly (Argia moesta); Prince William Forest Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Thursday, July 26, 2012, 15:02: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powdered_Dancer_(male)_-_Argia_moesta,_Prince_William_Forest_Park,_Woodbridge,_Virginia.jpg; Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/7652617576/

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.

"Argia moesta." 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=3459

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 moesta (Hagen, 1861: 94 as Agrion) -- Powdered 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

Hagen, Hermann. "41. A. moestum! Agrion moestum Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America. With a List of the South American Species: 94-95. 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/18918197
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/