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Posts Tagged: damselflies
A Damsel, But Not in Distress
It's a damsel, but not in distress. It's a Familiar Bluett, but it's not all that familiar--unless you study Odonata. Lately we've been seeing scores of damseflies zigzagging in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. Seven showed up at one...
A female damselfly, identified as a familiar bluet, Enallagma civile, rests on a Tithonia leaf in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Entomologists call this a "two-fer" photo: two insects in the same photo. While one damselfly claims a leaf, another circles above. These are the familiar bluett, (Enallagma civile), according to Greg Kareofelas, an associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Blue as Blue Can Be
They look like shiny blue and black needles. Make that "flying" shiny blue and black needles. We spotted this damselfly foraging on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) this week in our family bee garden. The blue was breathtaking. Can anything be so...
A male tule bluet on a fading Mexican sunflower blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Mighty Mites!
If you've ever been "up close and personal" to a damselfly, you might have seen the water mites. Naturalist Greg Karofelas of Davis, an associate of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, has not only seen them, he has photographed them. See his truly...
Water mites on a damselfly. (Photo by Greg Kareofelas, taken with a Canon Elph)
This image shows a damselfly with water mites on its thorax. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Delightful Damselflies
When an egret swooped down and ate all the goldfish in our fish pond--quite a smorgasbord of goldies--we left the pond bare for a couple of months. The result was a good one: more damselflies. Damselflies lay their eggs in water, whether it be a...
Damselfly with water mites (see egglike mass). The insect next to it is probably thrips, according to Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Damselfly resting in the garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A blue damsefly brightens the garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Like a Needle in a Haystack
Finding a tan-colored damselfly in a patch of fading English lavender is like finding a needle in the proverbial haystack. They're so tiny and inconspicuous that they're easy to miss. They're about an inch long and so slender that they look like flying...
Damselfly on a leaf in the late afternoon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A cluster of red mites on a damselfly in the early morning. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
