Vivid Dancer Damselfly With Passengers

This image was in a recent presentation I did, and a member of the audience commented that it must be female because of the "eggs" near the end of the tail. In truth, these are not eggs. I did not notice them when I was taking the photo, but the camera makes it cleanly visible.



vivid dancer damselfly (Argia vivida)


Take a closer look



parasitic mites on the tail of a damselfly


They are mites, not eggs.


Every living creature seems to have to contend with one kind of parasite or another. Some are internal, and some are external. In this case the mites are probably tapping into the blood between segments in the exoskeleton.


I have seen damselflies covered from head to tail in mites, so by comparison this is a light load.

Dancing Bluet

Current folder of Images I am editing: Damselflies. These are such delicate little insects, and so colorful. I usually spot them hovering close to the ground in close vicinity to water. Just a little strip of blue zipping around in the sun. (Actually, they come in a variety of shapes and colors, but blue is the most common). I photographed these close to Camp Creek on the Nature Conservancy's Zumwalt Prairie Preserve in July.

There are hundreds of species in the U.S., dozens in the Pacific Northwest, and many look alike. However, I narrowed down these two individuals to Argia vivida, or Vivid Dancer. The male is blue, the female is pale.

Photographed with a high-speed camera. You can see a little more about the process here: http://www.oregonwild.com/High-Speed1.V.html