Skimming Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Blue-Brown Eyes, Diamond-Marked Thorax

Summary: North American skimming bluet damselfly habitats in eastern Canada and the United States get barless eyespots, blue-brown eyes and diamond-marked thoraxes.

skimming bluet damselfly (Enallagma geminatum); Searsmont, south central Waldo County, southeastern Maine; Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 15:34:42: Fyn Kynd, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American skimming bluet damselfly habitats avoid arborists, master gardeners and tree stewards, not master naturalists, from Nova Scotia through Texas, Ontario, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma and soggy distribution ranges everywhere in-between.

Skimming bluets bear their common name for flying low over water and from blue colors and the scientific name Enallagma geminatum (together [in ovipositing] damselfly twin). Common names channel the consensus of scientific committees in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose Bulletin of American Odonatology carries articles in English and Spanish. Scientific designations deepen descriptions in 1895 by David Simons Kellicott (Jan. 28, 1842-April 13, 1898), Professor of Zoology and Entomology at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Skimming bluet damselfly life cycles expect clear, muddy or swampy, fish-filled, moderate- or slow-flowing lakes, ponds and streams with emergent or floating vegetation such as water-lilies.

February through November function as optimum, southernmost flight seasons even though June through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in all North American skimming bluet damselfly niches.

Male skimming bluet damselflies go back and forth on near-surface flights among foraging and pre-mating perches atop algal mats, emergent grasses and sedges and water-lily pads. They head out and frequently hover just barely over open water surfaces while they hunt as gleaners like other pond damsels and unlike related sallying dancers. They imprison within dark, three-segmented legs and projectable, retractable lower lips, aquatic or terrestrial, flushed or opportunistic, low-flying or low-lying, motionless or moving invertebrate food sources.

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

Immature skimming bluets keep pale-colored, small sizes even though adults know black and blue colors as males and black and blue or green colors as females.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycle stages link rod-shaped eggs laid in floating debris or vegetation, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Recently emerged adults called tenerals manage permanent colors and sexual maturation before morning matings in shrubs away from water and manipulating eggs into floating 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 skimming bluet 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 skimming bluets.

Brown over tan eyes; blue or pale green thoraxes with black-, wide-striped shoulders and upper-sides; blue- or green-sided, spotted black abdomens qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black-and-blue heads; blue-streaked brown over tan-green eyes and pale, separated eyespots; black-, wide-striped shoulders and upper thoraxes; blue- to white-ringed, dark-tipped black abdomens. Adults show off 0.75- to 1.14-inch (19- to 29-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.55- to 0.87-inch (14- to 22-millimeter) abdomens and 0.47- to 0.67-inch (12- to 17-millimeter) hindwings.

Blue-streaked brown eyes; large, pale eyespots without bars; blue-lined, diamond-patterned thoraxes tell skimming bluet damselflies from other pond damsels in North American skimming bluet damselfly habitats.

skimming bluet damselfly (Enallagma geminatum); Water Way Farm, Lovettsville, Loudon County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, May 5, 2012, 10:29: Judy Gallagher, 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:

skimming bluet damselfly (Enallagma geminatum); Searsmont, south central Waldo County, southeastern Maine; Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 15:34:42: Fyn Kynd, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/79452129@N02/20044772400/

skimming bluet damselfly (Enallagma geminatum); Water Way Farm, Lovettsville, Loudon County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, May 5, 2012, 10:29: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skimming_Bluet_-_Enallagma_geminatum,_Water_Way_Farm,_Lovettsville,_Virginia_-_7211563430.jpg; Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/7211563430/

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 geminatum Kellicott, 1895: 239 - Skimming Bluet (syn.) Enallagma piscinarium Williamson, 1900: 273." 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 geminatum." 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=3669

Kellicott, D.S. (David Simons). "Odonata -- A Note and a Description: Enallagma geminata n. sp." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences, vol. VI, no. 7 (September 1895): 239-240. Philadelphia PA: Entomological Rooms of the Academy of Natural Sciences, 1895.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2583003

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/

Webster, F.M. (Francis Marion); Philip P. Calvert. "Obituary (for David Simons Kellicott)." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Vol. IX, No. 6 (June 1898): 160. Philadelphia PA: Entomological Rooms of The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1898.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2607656

Williamson, E.B. (Edward Bruce). "E. piscinarium n. sp. (piscinarius L., one fond of fish ponds)." The Dragonflies of Indiana: 273. Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources Twenty-Fourth Annual Report (1899). Indianopolis, IN: William B. Burford, 1900.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435061400032?urlappend=%3Bseq=299
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015042540859?urlappend=%3Bseq=49