Turquoise Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Dumbbell Eyespots, Blue-Green Tips

Summary: North American turquoise bluet damselfly habitats in the eastern United States get dumbbell-like eyespots, prominent blue-green tips and smooth flight.

turquoise bluet dragonflies (Enallagma divagans); South Cumberland State Park, Tennessee; Friday, June 13, 2014, 13:13:124: Melissa McMasters (cricketsblog), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American turquoise bluet damselfly habitats acquire few cultivators because of sogginess and many naturalists with distribution ranges from Maine through Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire and everything in-between.

Turquoise bluets bear their common name because of blue-green abdominal tips and thoraxes and the scientific name Enallagma divagans (together [in ovipositing] damselfly [that is] wandering). Common names channel the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas concerning Western Hemisphere odonates, from Canada through Chile and Argentina. Descriptions in 1876 by Michel Edmond de Sélys Longhamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), 19th-century authority on the world's net-winged insects and odonates, drive scientific designations.

Turquoise bluet damselfly life cycles expect large, shaded, upland lakes, ponds and reservoirs, sluggish creeks and sloughs, moderately flowing, woodland streams and swamplands with slight currents.

March through September function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though May or June furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities in all the United States' turquoise bluet niches.

Adult male bluet damselflies go for daytime perching on low-lying blades or stems that give onto watery egg-laying sites or the thickest patches of waterside vegetation. They hover in deliberate, slow flight two to three inches (50.8 to 76.2 millimeters) above the water or head after prey as gleaners from hidden perches. Black-striped pale blue on tan, three-segmented legs and projectable, retractable lower lips immobilize low-flying, low-lying opportunistic passersby during daily forages before daytime mating and night-time roosting.

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

Immature turquoise bluets know dull-, light-, pale-colored, small sizes even though adults keep feminine black, blue, blue-green and brown, and masculine black and blue, body colors.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads from rod-shaped eggs laid by females backing down submerged stems to egg-hatched, little adult-like, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs to molted tenerals. Shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals mature physically and sexually before mating in waterside woods and moving to water where above-water males monitor submerged females' managing 30-minute ovipositing. 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 turquoise bluet damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 25 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31.66 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 turquoise bluets.

Blue eyespots; brown-topped, tan-bottomed eyes; pale blue to dull green thoraxes with black-brown, thin shoulder stripes; and black triangle-patterned, blue-segmented abdomens qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black-capped, black-striped blue eyes; blue eyespots and occipital bars; black-striped blue faces, heads, legs and thoraxes; clear wings; and blue-sided, blue-tipped black abdomens. Adults show off 1.02- to 1.42-inch (26- to 36-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.87- to 1.18-inch (22- to 30-millimeter) abdomens and 0.67- to 0.87-inch (17- to 22-millimeter) hindwings.

Short, turquoise-bright sizes and triangular patterns respectively tell female and male turquoise bluets from other bluets and pond damsels in North American turquoise blue damselfly habitats.

turquoise bluet damselfly (Enallagma divagans); photo by Myer Bornstein: Myer Bornstein @photobee1, via Twitter July 10, 2017

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

turquoise bluet dragonflies (Enallagma divagans); South Cumberland State Park, Tennessee; Friday, June 13, 2014, 13:13:12: Melissa McMasters (cricketsblog), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/cricketsblog/19729523711/

turquoise bluet damselfly (Enallagma divagans); photo by Myer Bornstein: Myer Bornstein @photobee1, via Twitter July 10, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/photobee1/status/884378052872032256

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.

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. "Enallagma divagans Selys, 1876: 521 -- Turquoise 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 divagans." 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=3662

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

Sélys Longchamps, M. Edm (Michel Edmond) de. "Synopsis des Agrionines (Suite de la 5e Légion: Agrion): 107. Enallagma divagans, de Selys." Bulletin de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et les Beaux-Arts de Belgique, quarante-cinquième année (série 2), tome XLI: 521. Bruxelles (Brussels), Belgium: F. Hayez, 1876.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5699653
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044093256832?urlappend=%3Bseq=543

"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/