Species Spotlight: Blue-ringed Dancer

We turn our attention now to a damselfly with beautifully brilliant colors—the Blue-ringed Dancer. This species is widespread in the midwest and along the east coast, but also extends into Arizona and Southern California, which is where we see it. Here's the range map, from OdonataCentral.



One of the best places to find this species, at least in Arizona, is perched on a rock in the middle of a swiftly-flowing stream, as in the photos below:





Identification is easy for this species, with the prominent blue rings along the middle sections of the abdomen. Also be sure to take a look at the thorax and head, where the rich blue colors are particularly vivid:





Notice the tendency of this species to hold the folded wings well above the abdomen when perched—a characteristic of most dancer species. In fact, you can usually tell a dancer from quite a distance just by seeing how it holds its wings. In addition, dancers tend to "flick" their wings open and shut a time or two just after landing.

One individual, seen at the Gilbert Water Ranch in Gilbert, AZ, had a weird looking face. It was kind of pink. At first it brought to mind a scene from the 1958 movie The Fly, where the hero's body has been mixed up with that of a fly during a teleporter experiment—he now has the head of a fly, and the fly has a human head. They try to find the mixed-up fly by looking in the garden for one that has a pink head. Here are some posters and photos from the movie:









Well, that was a terrifying movie for a youngster back in those days. Fortunately, the case I encountered at the Water Ranch wasn't like that at all—it was just a damselfly with a lot of pink on the head. I got closer, and finally had a better look. Here's what was going on with this individual:



Wow, one eye blue, the other pink. You don't see that everyday! Searching the bushes for a damselfly with a pink head sure made me think about the The Fly, though.