Tiny damselfly
On June 24th along and near Bull Creek I noticed plenty of tiny damselflies. This one was about an inch long. After looking at John C. Abbott’s book Damselflies of Texas and comparing with online photographs, I’m thinking this could well have been a male blue-ringed dancer, Argia sedula.
© 2022 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Nature has beautiful colors.
automatic gardener
July 2, 2022 at 4:29 AM
Just think if we were as colorful.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:04 AM
Perfectly parallel dancer, but which one?
Steve Gingold
July 2, 2022 at 4:39 AM
Perhaps a tiny dancer. No blue jeans, but a very pretty blue.
shoreacres
July 2, 2022 at 6:50 AM
I spent more time looking up the song just now than I did tracking down the kind of damselfly I photographed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Dancer
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:11 AM
And here’s information about the song’s apparent subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Feibelman
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:19 AM
Perseverance can be good.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:19 AM
These have begun showing up around the boats now. This is a wonderfully detailed image, right down to its tiny feet.
shoreacres
July 2, 2022 at 6:52 AM
From “Tiny Dancer” to tiny feet,
The progression’s quite a feat.
Do you know whether the damselflies around the boats are the same species as this one?
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:32 AM
I don’t think so. The ones I see can have either green or blue thoraxes, but they don’t have the colored bands on their abdomens.
shoreacres
July 11, 2022 at 7:14 AM
I think you’ll find many people disagree.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 8:32 AM
Lovely little creature – I’m very happy to see them around my pond. The detail of you photograph is fantastic.
Ann Mackay
July 2, 2022 at 9:12 AM
I think we’re all happy to see these little creatures. As I’ve so often done, I’ll credit my 100mm macro lens for the details, of which the full-size image reveals even more.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 9:55 AM
An insect with enormous wings and hardly any body!
Peter Klopp
July 2, 2022 at 9:26 AM
Imagine if our bodies were so long and slender.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 9:56 AM
A beautiful portrait, Steve!
Lavinia Ross
July 2, 2022 at 9:46 AM
Thanks. I hope damselflies are as common up there as they are down here.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 9:57 AM
A tiny jewel!
Eliza Waters
July 2, 2022 at 8:03 PM
Good way to put it.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 10:14 PM
Beautiful details, I’d forgotten they get that small. It’s a bluet in the genus Enallagma, I think, but I don’t know which species.
tomwhelan
July 2, 2022 at 8:31 PM
I think you’re right about the genus being Enallagma but I’ve had a hard time matching the species.
Steve Schwartzman
July 2, 2022 at 10:25 PM
They are difficult to ID. The band pattern is one thing to check, the structure of the last tail segment is another.
tomwhelan
July 2, 2022 at 11:17 PM
After looking at John C. Abbott’s book Damselflies of Texas and comparing with online photographs, I’m thinking this could well have been a male blue-ringed dancer, Argia sedula. I’ve added a link at the end of my text that leads to photographs of that species.
Steve Schwartzman
July 3, 2022 at 9:32 AM
So Linda was right, it was a tiny dancer!
tomwhelan
July 3, 2022 at 11:15 PM
Better a tiny dancer than a spiny prancer.
Steve Schwartzman
July 4, 2022 at 8:05 AM
This is a great photo of an amazing creature. Without knowing anything about mechanics and aerodynamics, its body parts still strike me as being out of proportion, especially that endlessly long abdomen.
tanjabrittonwriter
July 3, 2022 at 12:38 PM
Just think how chunky and strange we must look to them!
Steve Schwartzman
July 3, 2022 at 12:43 PM
True.
tanjabrittonwriter
July 3, 2022 at 1:00 PM
I see that the German word for this, Jungfer, is a weakened form of Jungfrau.
Steve Schwartzman
July 3, 2022 at 12:46 PM
That’s funny, Steve, as I also just looked up the translation. There were a lot of plants and I knew nothing about as a child that I first got to know here in the US, so I often don’t know the German names for them.
tanjabrittonwriter
July 3, 2022 at 1:00 PM
That’s quite understandable.
Steve Schwartzman
July 3, 2022 at 1:09 PM
Beautiful photo of a beautiful damselfly
Alessandra Chaves
July 4, 2022 at 10:18 AM
Yesterday I went to see what the German word for damselfly is and my translation site defaulted to Portuguese libelinha. I guess the last time I’d gone to the site I looked up something in Portuguese. Now we get to say the rhyming minha libelinha.
Steve Schwartzman
July 4, 2022 at 11:25 AM
Libélula.
Alessandra Chaves
July 4, 2022 at 12:38 PM
Does libélula apply to dragonflies rather than damselflies?
Steve Schwartzman
July 4, 2022 at 4:37 PM
Yes. Damselflies, I think, is “ lavadeira”. My brain going to mush. Libelinha not a word in the region I come from, sounds “Portuguese “ from motherland ( Portugal).
Alessandra Chaves
July 4, 2022 at 5:00 PM
Ah, a washerwoman.
Steve Schwartzman
July 4, 2022 at 5:05 PM
Fantastic focusing – these little ones are tough to photograph
norasphotos4u
July 5, 2022 at 8:37 PM
Of the damselfly pictures I took that morning, this was the only one I felt was of good enough quality to show. Fortunately all it takes is one.
Steve Schwartzman
July 5, 2022 at 10:06 PM
Such balance and colours. Quite a detailed shot.
navasolanature
July 8, 2022 at 2:54 PM
Thanks. Of the various damselfly pictures I took that day, this is the only one I felt satisfied enough with to show here.
Steve Schwartzman
July 8, 2022 at 4:02 PM
I can’t confirm or deny the identity, but I can say it’s a fantastic photograph and a beautiful species. I love the delicacy of damselflies.
Todd Henson
July 9, 2022 at 2:29 PM
Thanks. It’s not always possible to get the camera’s sensor parallel to a damselfly’s body but this time I managed to do that.
Steve Schwartzman
July 9, 2022 at 6:56 PM