Azure Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Sky-Blue Patches, Segments, Tips

Summary: North American azure bluet damselfly habitats in southeast Canada and the eastern and Great Plains United States get sky-blue patches, segments and tips.

azure bluet damselfly (Enallagma aspersum); Occoquan Regional Park, Lorton, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; May 2, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American azure bluet damselfly habitats argue against cultivating soggy soils and for naturalizing distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through South Carolina, Texas, Nebraska through Maine, Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

Azure bluets bear their common name because of sky-like blue colors and the scientific name Enallagma aspersum (together [in tandem ovipositing (egg-laying)] damselfly [that is] spotted). Common names corroborate scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose Executive Council confers research grants concerning Central, North and South American odonates. Scientific designations develop descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), nephew of novelist Ernst August Hagen (April 12, 1797-Feb. 15, 1880).

Azure bluet life cycles expect alkali calcareous gravel pits, artificial ponds, fishless, semi-permanent, shallow bogs, lakes and marshes and wetlands with dense, lush, thick emergent vegetation.

April through October function as maximum, most southerly flight seasons even though July and August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout all Canadian and United States niches.

Females go to foraging perches away from water and, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., to pre-mating, waterside perches. Males head for foraging, low-lying and pre-mating perches on waterside vegetation between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and, like other bluets, hover low over open water. Pale-clawed black lower segments of black-striped pale middle and upper leg segments and lower lips immobilize gleaned prey by darting after, flushing out or stalking passersby.

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

Immature female and male azure bluets keep dull, faded, light, pale colors and small sizes even though their mature successors respectively know conspicuous and inconspicuous forms.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles link eggs laid by upside-down females into submerged stems, little adult-like, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Molted tenerals mature one to three weeks after moving away from water and move back for 14-minute matings and 25-minute manipulations of eggs into ovipositing sites. 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 azure bluet damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, north- to south-ward, from minus 45 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 to minus 9.44 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 azure bluets.

Black abdomens with blue-green patches, segments and sides, black and blue-green heads, black-brown eyes, black-striped blue-green thoraxes and green-yellow, oval, small eyespots quicken adult female identifications. Adult males reveal black-and-blue heads, black-capped blue eyes, blue eyespots and thoraxes with black midlines and shoulder stripes, blue-tipped, pale-ringed black abdomens and dark-striped pale legs. Adults show off 1.06- to 1.34-inch (27- to 34-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.83- to 1.06-inch (21- to 27-millimeter) abdomens and 0.59- to 0.79-inch (15- to 20-millimeter) hindwings.

No other bluet in overlapping North American azure bluet damselfly habitats transmits the azure blue female's blue-patched terminal segments and male's blue terminally segmented, blue-tipped abdomens.

female azure bluet damselfly (Enallagma aspersum) during metamorphosis, with larval exuviae (right); Saturday, April 10, 2010, 23:29: bgv23, 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:

azure bluet damselfly (Enallagma aspersum); Occoquan Regional Park, Lorton, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; May 2, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/34449860415/

female azure bluet damselfly (Enallagma aspersum) during metamorphosis, with larval exuviae (right); Saturday, April 10, 2010, 23:29: bgv23, >CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emerging_E_aspersum_(4571068302).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; 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 aspersum (Hagen, 1861: 97 as Agrion) -- Azure 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 aspersum." 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=3648

Hagen, Hermann. "46. A. aspersum! Agrion aspersum Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America. With a List of the South American Species: 97. 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/1321234
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t32241f34?urlappend=%3Bseq=132

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/