A hitherto unknown flight pattern of female Calopteryx splendens is described. On a day with heavy winds, when no damselfly could fly in open space of the river, I observed and filmed four to six females foraging in a small bay sheltered by bank vegetation. Females fought for perches and showed a threatening flight with…
By means of slow-motion film analysis we found new female refusal behaviour patterns against male harassment in a variety of Odonata species. Often, females could escape simply by flying faster than males. Due to the morphological preconditions, there were differences in the two suborders. In Anisoptera, several behavioural specialities were analysed: (a) females of Aeshna…
Female-limited colour polymorphisms are widespread in Odonata, usually showing an androchrome and one or more gynochromes. Androchromes have been hypothesized to function as male mimics with a consequent decrease of male harassment, although males may also learn to recognize the different female colour morphs. In the Eurasian damselfly Lestes sponsa, the occurrence of two female…
The exoskeleton of the female genitalic region in Phenes raptor is described based on light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. It is shown that in this species the pattern of sclerites, articulations, processes, and apodemes is overall the same as in other ovipositor-bearing Odonata, i.e. Zygoptera, the anisozygopteran Epiophlebia, and the anisopteran Aeshnidae. However, many…
The female of Leptobasis melinogaster González-Soriano, 2002 is formally described and illustrated. Female L. melinogaster can be distinguished from the seven other known congeners by the shape and presence of a ventral lobe below the rounded lateral margins of the posterior and median lobes of the prothorax as well as by the dark apices on…
Adult female and ultimate stadium larva of Mesagrion leucorrhinum are formally described and illustrated based on material from three locations in Antioquia, Meta and Cundinamarca Departments, Colombia. The species is sexually dimorphic. The ♀ is distinguishable from other related genera by a pair of notches in the prothoracic anterior lobe and shares with Heteropodagrion and…
The female of Mortonagrion ceylonicum is described and figured for the first time. The female was described briefly by Laidlaw (1924) but was not assigned to a genus or species. An amended description of the male is also provided. Additional notes on habitat, distribution and behaviour are given.
In high densities males of Calopteryx splendens showed alternative reproductive behaviour at the river Oker in northern Germany. One of several tactics was to pursue females. Pursuing flight was filmed in summer 2006 in slow motion. Frame by frame analysis showed that males fly in irregular flight patterns: they showed different lengths of wing beat…
The maintenance of female colour polymorphism in coenagrionids is still an open issue. Here we ask if the three different female morphs of Coenagrion puella represent different reproductive traits in terms of clutch and egg size. Therefore clutch size and egg morphometry of the three female colour morphs were examined. We found that female colour…
I investigated whether the level of male harassment affects females’ oviposition behaviour, such that females oviposit unguarded under suboptimal conditions and/or vary oviposition duration, dip number, dip frequency or number of oviposition site changes. The study species were the libellulids Crocothemis erythraea, Ortbetrum chrysostigma, Pantala flavescens, Sympetrum fonscolombii, Trithemis annulata and T. kirbyi ardens. Only…