Saturday, June 29, 2013

Damselfly in Distress

This afternoon, I encountered an ebony jewelwing damselfly in the building in which I work. The poor thing was floundering by one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows near the front entrance, so I decided to give it a helping hand. My co-worker **REDACTED** took a couple of pictures:






The absence of white wingspots indicates that this is a male damselfly... with the indoor lighting, it is impossible to see the bluish, iridescent sides of the abdomen, but they were plainly visible in the light of day, when I released this little guy in the great outdoors. As his diet consists largely of mosquitoes, he'll repay the favor many times over, unless he gets eaten by some critter.

6 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Good on you!

I'm having a devil of a time getting decent insect shots with my old camera. It was so much easier with the G15 *sniff*.
~

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Even better for the bug!

Patricia said...

Looks like you did your good deed for the day!

John Going Gently said...

Never seen one before..... Like black silk

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Looks like you did your good deed for the day!

Thanks! This little baby's a mosquito eater, so it was a mutually benefit arrangement.

Never seen one before..... Like black silk

They are gorgeous. The other damselflies tend to have colors so bright they look like they'd been painted... they are almost unreal looking.

Substance McGravitas said...

Yes, amazing.