Damselflies are some of my favorite insects because they are pretty and seem so delicate. I have to admit it is also because I like using damselfly imitations to catch trout. The first time I realized they might be good to fish with I noticed trout biting my blue fly line. It took me a couple of hours to snap to what they were doing. When I finally but on an imitation blue damselfly I flopped it out in the water about 2 feet from my float tube. Before I could properly cast it a big rainbow trout came all of the way out of the water and came back down and grabbed my fly. Scarred me to death! Needless to say I missed that fish.
Damselflies are aquatic insects. The female lays her eggs in either slow or still water. The eggs hatch out into a nymph stage that can live for years. Damselfly nymphs are aggressive predators and have a lower jaw that opens up like the front scoop on a bulldozer. If they weighed 5 pounds we would be scared to death of them. They have an incomplete metamorphosis because the nymph climbs out on land and changes into an adult without any sort of pupa stage.
The adults have one job and that is to successfully reproduce. Before they actually mate the male grabs the female’s thorax with clasper-like structures at the end of its abdomen. If the fit between the male’s claspers and the female’s thorax isn’t right they will separate and look for a different mate.
Once they have decided it is a good fit the female will place the tip of her abdomen on the underside of the very front of the male’s abdomen.
The male places a package of sperm into the female. The fact that the male’s sperm is packaged has advantages and disadvantages. If another male comes along after a female has mated it can remove the first males sperm and put in it’s own. It the female keeps the package of sperm she has a special structure, a spermatheca, where she nourishes the sperm and keeps them alive. That way every time she produces some eggs she already has the sperm to fertilize them, therefore she only has to mate once.
OK this last part I totally made up and have no claim to its validity. I looked at the photo below here and saw a heart in the shape of the two damselflies bodies. They are obviously mating. I wonder if this is where we got the idea for a heart = love. Like I said, I totally made it up.
Great photos, Judy and very interesting–even the made up part.
Wish I were that flexible!
I think so too, Deby and Judy. All of the best ideas are from natue. The text with the pictures of the damselflies was perfect! 🙂
I think that we got all of our good ideas from nature. I really smiled when seeing the Damselflies and was delighted to learn more about them.