Blue-fronted Dancer

After all my talk about blue dragonflies, you'll all be excited to know that today I'm talking about something much different: blue damselflies like this Blue-fronted Dancer. 😁

The 1st thing to look at when identifying these guys is to look at how they hold their wings. If the wings were held at the same height as the abdomen, we'd have to rule out a lot of bluets. But this damselfly is holding its wings completely above the abdomen, something you normally see only in dancers and sprites. seriously cutting down the number of damselflies you need to consider.

The next most important thing to consider is that the thorax is almost completely blue, with only a small number of very thin black lines going from front to back. Relatively few damselflies look like that. Finally the front segments of the abdomen are almost entirely black, with only the last 3 being blue. That's generally considered to be the clincher for a Blue-fronted Dancer.

Apparently it's much trickier to distinguish the female of this species, which I don't have a picture of but am told they look quite a bit like the female Powdered Dancer. Of the damselflies I've photographed, the closest relatives of the Blue-fronted Dancer are the Powdered Dancer and the Violet Dancer.

The dancer damselflies don't actually dance but got their name from their fairly bouncy flying technique. Most other damselflies have a smoother flight, so it may be possible to recognize a dancer even before it lands.

August 3, 2022 at Lord Stirling Park
Photo 222581497, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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