Swamp Spreadwing Damselfly Habitats: Brown-Yellow or Dark Blue-Green Eyes

Summary: North American swamp spreadwing damselfly habitats from the Great Plains to the Atlantic have brown-yellow-eyed females and dark blue-green-eyed males.

swamp spreadwing damselfly (Lestes vigilax) in Prince William Forest Park, Triangle, Virginia; Monday, June 13, 2016, 14:21:03: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American swamp spreadwing damselfly habitats alarm arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards in acidic, waterlogged soils from Great Plains distribution ranges to Atlantic coastlines from Nova Scotia through Florida.

Swamp spreadwings bear their common name for vegetated, waterlogged, wooded habitats and for wings reposed at 45-degree angles and the scientific name Lestes vigilax (watchful robber). Common names consolidate the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose members comply with 31 DSA collecting guidelines concerning specimens. Descriptions in 1862 by Michel Edmond de Sélys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), scientist from Paris, France, and world-renowned authority on odonates, delineate scientific designations.

Swamp spreadwing damselfly lifespans expect acidic-watered, shaded, slow-moving, woodland bogs, lakes, marshes, ponds, streams, swamps and vernal pools with dense, emergent, non-woody and woody, waterlogged vegetation.

March through December function as optimal, southernmost flight seasons even though June through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout eastern Canada's and the United States' niches.

Swamp spreadwing damselflies go inconspicuously slowly over canopy-covered waters and watersides and through forests, shrublands and woodlands and grip conspicuous perches inconspicuously at motionless, oblique angles. They hunt from sheltered perches in shaded, tangled herbaceous or shrubby waterside or woodland vegetation after edible invertebrate passersby by honing immobile perching into unhurried sallies. Dark, fly-catching, long-spined, long legs and immobilized interludes inspire them and other pond and related stream spreadwings to sallies, not hawking after fliers or gleaning ground-dwellers.

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

Female and male swamp spreadwing damselflies keep to full, faded, light, pale colors and low size ranges during immature pond spreadwing stages that know incomplete metamorphosis.

Swamp spreadwings live as egg-hatched larvae, naiads or nymphs with big heads, compound eyes, perch- and prey-latching legs, prey-loading lower lips (labium) and visual information-linked brains. Mated tandem pairs manage ovipositing sites in emergent, never submergent, in-water or waterside vegetation and preferentially manipulate eggs into above-water stem tissues of pickerel-weed (Pontederia cordata). Pond spreadwing members of the Calopterygidae broad-winged family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms.

North American swamp spreadwing damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 to 1.66 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 swamp spreadwings.

Age-blued, brown-yellow eyes, bronze to brown-green upper thoraxes, brown-green abdomens, clear wings, narrow, pale red-brown shoulder stripes and pale lower thoraxes qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal age-whitened, blue-yellow thoracic sides and undersides, blue-fronted, green-sided faces, dark blue-green eyes, metallic green-black-topped abdomens and heads and red-brown-striped, metallic green-black upper thoraxes. Adults show off 1.69- to 2.16-inch (43- to 55-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.42- to 1.77-inch (36- to 45-millimeter) abdomens and 0.91- to 1.06-inch (23- to 27-millimeter) hindwings.

Absence of female brown-yellow and male pale blue-green-yellow-highlighted, dark blue-green eyes touts other pond and related stream spreadwings in overlapping North American swamp spreadwing damselfly habitats.

swamp spreadwing damselfly (Lestes vigilax) in Piscataquis County, central Maine; Saturday, July 3, 2010, 16:26:42: Mike Ostrowski (BCNH09), CC BY SA 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:

swamp spreadwing damselfly (Lestes vigilax) in Prince William Forest Park, Triangle, Virginia; Monday, June 13, 2016, 14:21:03: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/27827290962/; Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ 14:21

swamp spreadwing damselfly (Lestes vigilax) in Piscataquis County, central Maine; Saturday, July 3, 2010, 16:26:42: Mike Ostrowski (BCNH09), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/38976602@N05/4806915644/; Mike Ostrowski from North Bethesda, Maryland, USA, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swamp_Spreadwing.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; 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. "Lestes vigilax Hagen, in Selys 1862: 306 -- Swamp Spreadwing." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera Selys, 1854 > Lestidae, Calvert 1901 (Spreadwings) > Lestes Leach, 1815 (Pond Spreadwings).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Lestes vigilax." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Lestidae > Lestes.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=4526

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

Sélys Longchamps, E. (Edmond) de. "Synopsis des agrionines (Suite): Lestes: 14. Lestes vigilax, Hagen." Bulletin de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, trente et unième année (série 2), tome XIII, no. 4 (séance du 1er avril 1862): 306. Bruxelles, Belgium: M. Hayez, 1862.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36917003
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435065430191?urlappend=%3Bseq=316

"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/