American Sphagnum Sprite Damselfly Habitats: Blue or Blue-Green Eyes

Summary: North American sphagnum sprite damselfly habitats from east of the Great Plains to Atlantic coastlines have blue-eyed males and blue-green-eyed females.

sphagnum sprite damselfly (Nehalennia gracilis) at Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, Laurel, northern Prince George's County, southern Maryland; Sunday, June 25, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American sphagnum sprite damselfly habitats alleviate cultivation with gray, nutrient-rich mosses and naturalism with distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through Florida inland into Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin and Ontario.

Sphagnum sprites bear their common name for gray, mossy niches and inconspicuously tiny sizes and the scientific name Nehalennia gracilis (Rhein river goddess [with] slender [abdomen]). Common names credit the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose Executive Council confers honorary memberships for research and service. Scientific designations deploy descriptions in 1895 by Albert Pitts Morse (Feb. 10, 1863-April 29, 1936), entomologist and ornithologist from Sherborn, Massachusetts, and lecturer at Wellesley College.

Sphagnum sprite damselfly lifespans expect dense herbaceous vegetation, gray, nutrient-rich mosses called sphagnum and tall grasses and sedges along slow-flowing bogs, lakes, ponds, seeps and streams.

April through September function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though May and June respectively furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in southern and northern sphagnum sprite niches.

Sphagnum sprite damselflies get late starts on their days from near-ground perches and roosts on stalks and stems in dense beds of emergent grasses and sedges. Bodies huddled horizontally over and parallel to low-lying perches, long-spined legs and wings held above abdomens hint of hunting invertebrates in transit through sphagnum sprite habitats. Broadwings, clubtails, dancers, most skimmers and spreadwings, darners, emeralds and glider and saddlebag skimmers and non-dancer pond damsels respectively imprison prey by sallying, hawking and gleaning.

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

Immature female and male sphagnum sprites keep dull, faded, light, pale colors and know predatory success through cryptic coloring, diminutive sizes and prey-catching labium (lower lips).

Incomplete metamorphosis lets multi-molted non-flyers within larval, naiad or nymph stages look increasingly more in shape and size like the last molting into pre-adult, shiny-winged tenerals. Diminutive sizes and near-ground perches in dense, shaded grassy and herbaceous vegetation make sphagnum sprite life cycles mysterious apart mating in the afternoon and tandem ovipositing. Sprite 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 sphagnum sprite damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 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 sphagnum sprites.

Blue- and dark-segmented, metallic-green abdomens, clear, dot-tipped wings, dull green-blue eyes, metallic-green upper thoraxes and pale blue or yellow thoracic sides qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal blue eyes and abdominal and thoracic sides, blue-segmented, blue-tipped, metallic-green abdomens, clear, dot-tipped wings, fine occipital bars, metallic-green upper thoraxes and metallic-green-topped heads. Adults show off 0.98- to 1.18-inch (25- to 30-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.73- to 0.98-inch (18.5- to 25-millimeter) abdomens and 0.52- to 0.67-inch (13- to 17-millimeter) hindwings.

Absence of female blue-green and male blue eyes and insufficiently blue-tipped abdomens tell on other sprites in transit through overlapping North American sphagnum sprite damselfly habitats.

sphagnum sprite damselfly (Nehalennia gracilis) at Andelot Farm; Worton, Kent County, northeastern Maryland; June 7, 2014: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 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:

sphagnum sprite damselfly (Nehalennia gracilis) at Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, Laurel, northern Prince George's County, southern Maryland; Sunday, June 25, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/35222389620/

sphagnum sprite damselfly (Nehalennia gracilis) at Andelot Farm; Worton, Kent County, northeastern Maryland; Saturday, June 7, 2014: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/14371638902/

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. "Nehalennia gracilis Morse, 1895: 274 -- Sphagnum Sprite." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera, Selys, 1854 > Coenagrionidae, Kirby, 1890 (Pond Damselflies) > Nehalennia Selys, 1850 (Sprites).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

Morse, Albert P. (Pitts). August 1895. "New North American Odonata. II.: Nehalennia gracilis sp. nov." Psyche, vol. 7, no. 232 (August): 274. Cambridge MA: Cambridge Entomological Club.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11640114

"Nehalennia gracilis." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Coenagrionidae > Nehalennia.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3876

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/