Burgundy Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Purple-Black Stripes and Wedges

Summary: North American burgundy bluet damselfly habitats get the eastern United States purple-black-striped and wedged green, orange, purple, red, yellow bodies.

male burgundy bluet damselfly (Enallagma dubium), observed June 2017, James River, northwest of James River National Wildlife Refuge, Prince George County, southeastern Virginia: Laura Gaudette, CC BY 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

North American burgundy bluet damselfly habitats advise cultivators of weedy sogginess and naturalists of Atlantic and Gulf distribution ranges from Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia through Texas inland into Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Burgundy bluet damselflies bear their common name for burgundy-red markings on blue bodies and the scientific name Enallagma dubium (together [in ovipositing] damselfly [that is] dubious). Common names concentrate upon the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas to create non-scientific names in North America's major languages. Descriptions in 1924 by Francis Metcalf Root (Sept. 24, 1889-Oct. 21, 1934), Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, determine scientific designations.

Burgundy bluet life cycles expect black or clear water, open or vegetated, sand-bottomed lakes, oxbows, ponds, sloughs, slow reaches and swamps with emergent and floating vegetation.

March through September function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though April through September furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in all North American burgundy bluet damselfly niches.

Burgundy bluet damselflies go for foraging, patrolling, pre-mating flights over black or open waters and perches in dense grass or on floating leaves or water-lily pads. They head to waterside and watery niches in forested, grassy, herbaceous or swampy habitats by midday and to hidden, overnight resting roosts late in the afternoon. Black-spurred, black-striped, orange-red legs and projectable, retractable lower lips imprison flushed or opportunistic, low-flying or low-lying prey like other gleaning pond damsels and unlike sallying dancers.

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

Immature burgundy bluet damselflies keep to pale green colors and small size ranges but, like mature females and males, know black, wedge-like patterns on lower thoraxes.

Incomplete metamorphosis links rod-shaped eggs laid, through surface holes, in semi-circular rows on water-lily undersides, little adult-like, multi-molting, non-flying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted tenerals. Metamorphosed, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals manage permanent colors and sexual maturation before afternoon matings in shrubs and tandem manipulating eggs into ovipositing sites within 30 minutes. Bluet 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 burgundy bluet damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward, from 0 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17.77 to minus 6.66 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 burgundy bluets.

Orange-topped, yellow-bottomed eyes; pale green, orange or yellow thoraxes with purple-black-, narrow-striped sides and wide-striped shoulders; and black abdomens with orange sides quicken adult female identifications. Adult males reveal black heads; orange-red-violet faces; purple-topped red eyes; red thoraxes with purple-black-, narrow-striped sides and wide-striped mid-lines and shoulders; orange-red-sided, purple-red-based, red-purple-tipped black abdomens. Adults show off 0.98- to 1.18-inch (25- to 30-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.79- to 0.98-inch (20- to 25-millimeter) abdomens and 0.47- to 0.67-inch (12- to 17-millimeter) hind-wings.

Black wedge-patterned lower thoraxes and green, orange, purple, red and yellow colors tell burgundy bluets from other pond damsels in North American burgundy bluet damselfly habitats.

illustrations of color patterns of thorax, lateral view (figure 3; bottom left), and of head, dorsal view (figure 4; bottom right), in Francis Metcalf Root's description of burgundy bluet damselfly (Enallagma dubium) in "Notes on Dragonflies (Odonata) from Lee County, Georgia, with a Description of Enallagma dubium, new species," Entomological News, vol. XXXV, no. 9 (November 1924), page 323: Purdue University, Public Domain, Google-digitized, via HathiTrust

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

male burgundy bluet damselfly (Enallagma dubium), observed June 2017, James River, northwest of James River National Wildlife Refuge, Prince George County, southeastern Virginia: Laura Gaudette, CC BY 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enallagma_dubium_imported_from_iNaturalist_19_May_2019.jpg;
Laura Gaudette (gaudettelaura), Public Domain, via iNaturalist @ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9378715

illustrations of color patterns of thorax, lateral view (figure 3; bottom left), and of head, dorsal view (figure 4; bottom right), in Francis Metcalf Root's description of burgundy bluet damselfly (Enallagma dubium) in "Notes on Dragonflies (Odonata) from Lee County, Georgia, with a Description of Enallagma dubium, new species," Entomological News, vol. XXXV, no. 9 (November 1924), page 323: Purdue University, Public Domain, Google-digitized, via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754077853566?urlappend=%3Bseq=351%3Bownerid=118198243-357;
Purdue University, Public Domain, Google-digitized, via HathiTrust @ https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754077853566&seq=351&view=1up;
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2600744;
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2600744;
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Entomological Section, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/entomologicalnew35acad/page/323/mode/1up

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 Selys, 1875 (Bluets)." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera Selys, 1854 > Coenagrionidae, Kirby, 1890 (Pond Damselflies).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Enallagma dubium." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Coenagrionidae > Enallagma.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3664

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

Root, Francis Metcalf. "Notes on Dragonflies (Odonata) from Lee County, Georgia, with a Description of Enallagma dubium, New Species: Enallagma dubium, new species." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XXXV, no. 9 (November 1924): 321-324. Philadelphia PA: The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1924.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2600746

"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/