Mating damselflies: Love is in the air.

Familiar bluet damselfly mating wheel.

Males of Odonata, the family of insects that includes dragonflies and damselflies, have a pair of claspers at the end of their tail.  These appendages (see below) have one sole purpose; they allow the male to attach himself to a female for the purpose of mating.  In the above photo, the male (top damselfly with spotted abdomen) has attached himself to the back of the female's head.  In response, the female bends her abdomen around to bond with the male in a mating wheel.  

male clasper (https://bugguide.net/node/view/264557)

This position is maintained both for the fertilization of the eggs and afterwards for laying.  The male maintains his grasp as a means of preventing other males from clasping on.  The female extends her abdomen and the two fly off together with the female touching the water and depositing an egg with each maneuver.  

I find the heart-shaped mating wheel an interesting metaphor for today, it being Valentine's day.  Damselflies don't, of course, experience love the way we do, but there is the irresistible urge to mate.  The urge is so strong in fact that some females may receive serious injuries from the clasper organ.  It is not unusual for insects to die soon after mating.  This results for a variety of reasons, from being eaten (male praying mantids), from being damaged (female dragonflies), or because the process has so exhausted the bodies' resources (mayflies).

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's day.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I found a black widow spider in a plant pot today

Image
The spider I found is a western black widow spider, one of three species of black widow that occur in North America.  The fact that this one has another red patch on the back of its abdomen above the spinnerettes tells us that it is an immature individual. The one thing that people know about black widow spiders is that they are extremely poisonous.  Their venom is something like 15x more toxic than that of a rattlesnake.  The saving grace is that there is very little venom injected from a black widow bite than what a rattlesnake can deliver.   The good news is that black widow bites seldom lead to death.  You are more likely to suffer nausea, muscle pain, and swelling around the bite.  Symptoms usually last only 12 hours or so.  Death may be a result in people with compromised immune systems or in the very young or the elderly.   In 2018, it was reported that there were 1015 cases of people bitten by black widows.  Of those, there ...
Read more

The passing of a generation

Image
Kathryn's mom and dad with our children, Josh and Leanne. A generation, for North America, tends to be between 20 and 30 years.  During that time a couple will give birth and raise children to see them repeat the pattern as they themselves have done.  Each generation has its own set of standards, values, and ideals based upon their experiences and culture, and some of that is passed down to their offspring.  What changes are the life experiences of the following generation and the new customs and ideals that are blended together as a couple becomes a family. Kathryn's mom passed away a few days ago, she was predeceased by her husband several years ago.  Both of them were the grandparents of my children, the mother and father of my wife, Kathryn.  It was my pleasure to know them and to love them as my own, for to me they were Mom and Dad.  And they were there to welcome my children into the world just as my children were with them in spirit when they left it...
Read more

Hang in there, things will get better.

Image
The Svendsen Family - Eric, Samuel, Leanne, Joshua (top row), Nora, Kathryn, Chanelle, Emma If I could go back, in my mind, to a day in my life when I was really down, it would be nice to be able to see into the future.  If could see things as they are today, with the many blessings that have been given to me, it would give me hope knowing that things wouldn't always be so discouraging.   The message here is we do not know what the future holds.  When things are bad, it is hard to raise your head out of the mire to see beyond the darkness.  There are no guarantees, of course, that things will be better, but I think it is true that fortunes ebb and flow as tides do.  The trick is to see beyond the low points and not be too haughty during the high ones.  I know that, at this moment, things are very good.  What the future holds is unknown, but low and high points are likely in the forecast.   This is why taking satisfaction from the moment ...
Read more