Damsel Fly to ID - Enallagma carunculatum

Bluet

The "mostly black" bluets are a lot easier to identify than the "mostly blue" ones. Unfortunately yours is a "mostly blue."

If it lived around me, here in the East, I would call it Enallagam anna, the River Bluet. It has the same tapering black shoulder stripe as yours, and like yours has segments 8 and 9 blue and the top of segment 10 black.

My "Bible" for the Damselflies is Ed Lam's Damselflies of the Northeast. Unfortunately it doesn't work for British Columbia. I did check www.odonatacentral.com and saw that Enallagma anna is not on the list for British Columbia, though it does live in California and Oregon.

Wonder if there is a look-alike western kin for Enallagma anna?

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

… Stephen_WV, 25 July, 2005 - 5:52am

Thanks

Thanks Stephen for you post and info. I appreciate it.

… Kildale, 25 July, 2005 - 12:03pm

Lots of black

Actually, carunculatum is very similar to anna but probably has a little more black visible and compared to most of the Enallagma possible in the region, looking at the top of abdominal segments 3 to 7, we would describe this species as mostly black. The other three would have significantly more blue. So once again we would call this Tule, E. carunculatum. Earlier comments on

. On this image, however, you can finally see the blue as opposed to the immature or cold images with their faded violets. It may just be that Tule is the only species that visits your local garden, but we'll look forward to future images.

… john and jane balaban, 25 July, 2005 - 11:31am

Thanks

Thanks again for the work you do in ID'ing these for me.

… Kildale, 25 July, 2005 - 11:58am