Attenborough Nature Reserve

Damselflies


Blue-Tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

The widespread Blue-tailed Damselfly is our most abundant Odonata and our smallest. Numbers are well over 1000, perhaps 10000, in the flight period which is long (mid-May to early September) and contains two or three generations. Any hot day, especially between early June and late August, will reveal many of the delicate insects in waterside vegetation and nearby grasses.



Typical form Blue-Tailed Damselflies coupled

The male is black with a blue tip on the abdomen. Interestingly, the females occur in five colour forms. The basic pattern is black with a blue or brown abdominal tip but:
  • 'typica' is like the male with a turquoise thorax
  • 'rufescens' has a pink thorax
  • 'violacea' has a violet thorax
  • 'infuscans' has a pale brown thorax and
  • 'infuscans-obsoleta' likewise has a pale brown thorax but with no ante-humeral stripe



Female Blue-Tailed Damselfly, form violacea

All these colour forms are at Attenborough but their relative abundance has not been surveyed.
In territorial disputes, the males bob up and down confronting each other. The species is found in all waters and large colonies exist throughout the reserve. They are unusual in being able to tolerate some degree of pollution.