Orange Bluet Damselfly Habitats: Orange Body, Side-Lined Small Eyespot

Summary: North American orange bluet damselfly habitats from Canada to Mexico get orange side-lined, small eyespots on black, blue, green, orange, yellow bodies.

male orange bluet damselfly (Enallagma signatum); Julie Metz Neabsco Creek Wetlands Preserve, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, Sep. 7, 2013: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American orange bluet damselfly habitats augment cultivation along water and naturalism within Atlantic and Gulf distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota, Minnesota and Quebec and everywhere in-between.

Orange bluets bear their common name for blue and orange colors and the scientific name Enallagma signatum (together [in ovipositing] damselfly marked [with black and orange]). Common names confirm scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose first membership came from Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States. Descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), nephew-in-law of mineralogist Franz Ernst Neumann (Sept. 11, 1798-May 23, 1895), drive scientific designations.

Orange bluet damselfly life cycles expect clean or polluted, sandy lakes and ponds and slow-flowing rivers and streams with emergent, floating and submergent, waterside woody vegetation.

January through December function as optimal southernmost flight seasons even though July through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in all North American orange bluet damselfly niches.

Mature male orange bluet damselflies go to foraging, patrolling, pre-mating perches on algal mats, emergent vegetation, floating debris and waterside edges of grass and sedge beds. They head to conspicuous perches or hover low over open water on overcast days between midday and dark before hiding in tree roosts away from water. They imitate other, related gleaning pond damsels in immobilizing within black-striped orange legs and lower lips flushed or opportunistic, low-flying or low-lying, paused or pursued prey.

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

Immature orange bluets keep to pale blue-colored, small sizes even though mature females and males know respectively blue, green, orange or yellow and bright orange colors.

Incomplete metamorphosis links rod-shaped eggs laid in subsurface or surface algae, grasses or water lilies, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted pale blue tenerals. Shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals manage colors and sexual maturation within 12 days before mating within three weeks and manipulating eggs into ovipositing sites within 20 minutes. 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 orange bluet damselfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 1.11 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 orange bluets.

Black abdomens, black-lined, wide-striped midlines and shoulders, blue, green, orange or yellow heads, sides, thoraxes and tips and brown-green-tan eyes qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal bars between two small eyespots, black-striped, wide-lined midlines and shoulders, black-striped orange faces, orange eyes, sides, thoraxes and tips and orange-ringed black abdomens. Adults show off 1.10- to 1.46-inch (28- to 37-millimeter) head-body lengths, 0.91- to 1.18-inch (23- to 30-millimeter) abdomens and 0.59- to 0.83-inch (15- to 21-millimeter) hindwings.

North American orange bluet damselfly habitats transmit blue, green, orange or yellow on black and brown, orange on black and small eyespots on orange side-to-side lines.

male orange bluet damselfly (left) and female orange bluet damselfly (right); Leesylvania State Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Wednesday, June 13, 2012: Judy Gallagher (judygva), 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:

male orange bluet damselfly (Enallagma signatum); Julie Metz Neabsco Creek Wetlands Preserve, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, Sep. 7, 2013: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/9696238132/

male orange bluet damselfly (left) and female orange bluet damselfly (right); Leesylvania State Park, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Wednesday, June 13, 2012: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/7370413204/

For further information:

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Berger, Cynthia. Dragonflies. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books: Wild Guide, 2004.

Bright, Ethan. "Enallagma signatum (Hagen, 1861: 84 as Agrion) - Orange Bluet (syn.) Agrion dentiferum Walsh, 1863: 236." 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

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Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=3686

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Root, Francis Metcalf. "Notes on Dragonflies (Odonata) from Lee County, Georgia, with a Description of Enallagma dubium, New Species: Enallagma dubium, new species." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XXXV, no. 9 (November 1924): 321-324. Philadelphia PA: The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1924.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2600746

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Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3781449
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924061341735?urlappend=%3Bseq=260