Furtive Forktail Damselfly Habitats: Bicolor Ovipositor, Gray Female

Summary: North American furtive forktail damselfly habitats in Atlantic and Gulf states get bicolor ovipositors, gray-white females, long forktails and slim males.

furtive forktail damselfly (Ischnura prognata); Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples, Collier County, southwestern Florida; Monday, Feb. 3, 2014, 13:01:04: Melissa McMasters (cricketsblog), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American furtive forktail damselfly habitats advance shade-loving arboriculture, gardening, naturalism and tree stewardship through Atlantic and Gulf distribution ranges from New York southward through Texas and inland through Arkansas and Tennessee.

Furtive forktails bear their common names for dimmed detectability in canopy-covered, shaded wetlands and for fork-tipped abdomens and the scientific name Ischnura prognata (thin tail[ed] descendant). Common names calibrate the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas for genus and species names in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Scientific designations debut with descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), first formally titled Professor of Entomology in the United States.

Furtive forktail damselfly lifespans expect canopy cover-rich, slow-moving lakes, marshes, ponds, seeps, sloughs and swamps with dense emergent and waterside grasses and herbaceous and woody plants.

January through December function as optimal, southernmost flight seasons even though April through May furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout all of North America's furtive forktail niches.

Adult female and male furtive forktail damselflies gather most visibly in, and rarely go far from, dense undergrowths of shaded lizard's-tail, tall grasses and water smartweed. They never hasten to non-canopied, sunny lake-, marsh-, pond-, seep-, slough- or swamp-side vegetation or, even though long abdomens help them hover, to open, sunlit waters. Adult life cycle stages incline toward tropical damselfly-like flights from stem to stem amid lower branches and tree undergrowth and to forages at 6.56-plus-foot (two-plus-meter) heights.

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

Immature males keep dull, faded, small forms even though immature females know black abdomens and orange eyes, faces, postocular spots and, with black, thin midlines, thoraxes.

Immature females apparently lack forktail polymorphic (multi-colored) options since they always look heteromorphically like bright to dull orange, female-colored females and never andromorphically like male-colored females. Mature females move through furtive forktail habitats with males even though they manage one mating, in the morning, and non-tandem, unaccompanied ovipositing (egg-laying) unaided into emergent stems. Forktail 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 furtive forktail damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward, from minus 5 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20.55 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 furtive forktails.

Blue, green or white thoracic sides with dark triangles at wing bases before dark midlines and metallic brown thoracic fronts quicken brown-headed, green-eyed adult female identifications. Adult males reveal blue tiny postocular spots, green eyes, black abdomens with yellow sides and thoraxes with black stripes although they retain no female-like, gray powdering. Adults show off 1.18- to 1.46-inch (30- to 37-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.94- to 1.22-inch (24- to 31-millimeter) abdomens and 0.55- to 0.79-inch (14- to 20-millimeter) hindwings.

Overlapping North American furtive forktail damselfly habitats tolerate other females' all-dark stigmata, gray-white abdominal sides and postocular spots and males' bluer abdomens and shorter, stouter forktails.

Furtive forktail damselflies (Ischnura prognata) favor shaded areas and swamps: GFBWT @FLBirdingTrail, via Twitter May 15, 2017

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

furtive forktail damselfly (Ischnura prognata); Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples, Collier County, southwestern Florida; Monday, Feb. 3, 2014, 13:01:04: Melissa McMasters (cricketsblog), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/cricketsblog/20080726040/

Furtive forktail damselflies (Ischnura prognata) favor shaded areas and swamps: GFBWT @FLBirdingTrail, via Twitter May 15, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/FLBirdingTrail/status/864274223308701696

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. "Ischnura Charpentier, 1840 (Forktails)." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Zygoptera Selys, 1854 > Coenagrionidae, Kirby, 1890 (Pond Damselflies).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

GFBWT ‏@FLBirdingTrail. "Of the 172 species of "odes" (dragon/damselflies) in Fla, there's only 1 Furtive Forktail! Photo from OdonataCentral." May 15, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/FLBirdingTrail/status/864274223308701696

Hagen, Hermann. "17. A. prognatum! Agrion prognatum Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America, With a List of the South American Species: 83. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. IV, art. I. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, July 1861.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1321555
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t32241f34?urlappend=%3Bseq=118

"Ischnura prognata." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Zygoptera > Coenagrionidae > Ischnura.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3756

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/