northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's another Blue Dasher . It lacks the blue pruinose of a mature male, but is it a female or an immature male? The more I read about this, the harder it is to distinguish between mature females and immature males. I think this is an immature male because the eyes look blue (though most documentation describes their eyes as green), definitely not the reddish eyes of most females. But some older females apparently develop greenish eyes. On the other hand, some older females also develop some of the pruinose that usually distinguishes them from males. Maybe the biggest difference between the sexes is the tail, which looks a little stumpy in females. I'm leaning towards an immature male since: It has the right eyes, the lack of pruinose, and the tail doesn't look especially short. If it's an older adult female, she's got the right eyes but lacks any pruinose. And I think the tale would look shorter. If it's a normal mature female, she's got the wrong eyes and...

Here's another Blue Dasher . As a fairly common dragonfly, I see a fair number of them and thus will be posting a fair number of their pictures.  This guy is really showing off that old pruinosity on his tail, and points said tail upward as Blue Dashers are wont to do. Flashing that tail may be advertising to other males that this is his territory, and if they're thinking of invading there's going to be trouble. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Here's a female Blue Dasher Dragonfly , following up yesterday's male Blue Dasher Dragonfly. As you might notice, the species common name comes from the pruinose on the male. Other than a little blue on the head, the female doesn't have a heck of a lot of blue. They also like to perch with a pair of their wings held ahead of their head. This isn't unique to Blue Dashers, but it's a little irregular. Before they're adults, dragonflies live as small aquatic predatory nymphs called naiads. Nymphs and larva are two common ways for insects to grow into adults. Unlike larva, nymphs never go through a pupa metamorphosis stage like moths/caterpillars do. Instead nymphs are structurally similar to adults, and get more similar as they go through their instars .  The naming convention comes from Greek mythology. Nymphs are minor female deities, and naiads are basically water nymphs . August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Meet a male  Blue Dasher Dragonfly . Tomorrow I'll show you a female. Like many other dragonflies in my area, they are also in the skimmer family . (Remember that this includes dragonflies like the pondhawks and meadowhawks in addition to ones actually named skimmers. At the Skimmer Family reunion, little nametags would no doubt be helpful because there's too many of these guys to remember them all.) On the other hand, there's no other dragonfly species in their genus, so the Blue Dasher has no really close relatives. The turquoise eyes and light blue tail make these guys fairly distinctive-looking. Like with many male dragonflies, the tail starts out a different color but develops a pruinescent waxy coating as they age. In Blue Dashers (and Eastern Pondhawks), the pruinescence is light blue, but in Common Whitetails and Widow Skimmers it is white. You can still see some of the original dark-blue tail color at the end of the tail of this individual. The other name for thi...