17 July 2024
Bug season brings pests but additionally magnificence. Considered one of my favorites is that this delicate damselfly, the ebony jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata), named for the males’ black wings with metallic blue-green edges. Their our bodies are shiny blue-green, too.
The females are much less flashy, darkly coloured with white spots on the suggestions of the wings. When a feminine flies within the forest gloom the white suggestions are all you see.
Ebony jewelwings choose wooded habitats close to creeks and streams the place they flit from leaf to leaf. In early July in Frick Park we noticed women and men courting and jostling for territory. After they mate they kind a coronary heart form with their our bodies.
Damselflies, like dragonflies, are carnivorous. The adults take bugs from the air; nymphs take them within the water.
Watch the jewelwings fly and mate and two females lay eggs within the stream on this video from Canada. I like how they flash open their wings.
