Species Spotlight: Spot-winged Glider

Well, it seems only appropriate that the Spot-winged Glider should have a turn in the "spot"-light.

Betsy and I made a number of observations of this species on our recent trip to the East coast. Our first sightings were at the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge near Virginia Beach, VA. We saw many of these dragonflies at the refuge, where they were immediately identifiable by the small dark spots next to the abdomen on the hindwings. Here's a look at one:



The dark spots are small, but they're clearly visible in flight as the dragonflies zip by. Here's another look at the spots:



At Back Bay, we saw a pair in tandem dipping repeatedly as the female deposited eggs in a small mud puddle, maybe 6 feet square. The next day we returned to the same spot, to look for interesting birds, and noticed that the puddle had dried up. This species is known for laying eggs in temporary bodies of water that are free of fish, and small puddles are one example. Presumably, the eggs can survive out of water until Fall rains return to fill the puddles for a longer period of time—or perhaps this is just one example of egg laying in inappropriate locations that simply won't support the next generation.

Another example of inappropriate egg laying was observed on our second trip, this time to Cape Cod, where we again saw Spot-winged Gliders. In this case, we observed female Spot-winged Gliders laying eggs repeatedly on the hood of cars in the parking lot of a wildlife refuge. This is know behavior for this species. Presumably, the polarized reflected light from the car hoods make the females treat the surfaces as being pools of water. We saw the females make many dips onto the hoods, and a number of eggs were deposited. Here's a photo of one of the hoods. The tiny yellow spots are Spot-winged Glider eggs:



Here's a closer look at one cluster of eggs:



The dragonflies were so determined to lay eggs on the cars that they were even doing so as the cars moved about in the parking lot. I've read that in the Middle East they like to lay eggs in pools of oil, which apparently give even stronger reflections of polarized light. Lots of strange things are going on out there in our world.