In odonates, female specific color polymorphisms appear to be an evolutionary response to sexual harassment, but we know little about the decision rules males use when searching for variable females. For two sympatric species of Enallagma, we measured male responses to live female variants under field conditions, early and later in the day. In the…

In many species of damselflies, sexual conflict in the form of male harassment is thought to explain the widespread existence of female-limited color polymorphisms. With a few exceptions, the majority of investigations into these mating systems have assumed that male damselflies primarily use visual cues to detect and recognize their mates. Recently, laboratory studies have…

This paper is dedicated to Philip S. Corbet on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Female limited polymorphism consists in the coexistence of two or more female morphs in the same population and is widespread among odonates. Generally, one female morph, the andromorph, resembles males in colour or, sometimes, also in morphology and behaviour, while one or more other morphs, gynomorphs, differ from males. This phenomenon is probably promoted by…