Blue ringed dancer Damselfly

Description:

Males have strikingly blue heads, eyes and pale shoulder stripes. The top of the thorax is black. The dark shoulder stripe below the blue one is black, wide, irregular below and often broken at the top, leaving a small blue dot. Abdomen segments 3-7 have blue rings at their bases, and segments 8-10 are blue. Wings of both genders may have an amber hue. Eyespots (on the back of the head) are irregular and stippled. The female is brown with a hair-thin black shoulder stripe ending in an arrowhead. Just below that stripe is a darkened area. The ovipositor is pale and quite long in comparison with those of other dancers. Black-type bluets (azure, skimming and stream bluets) are similar to male blue-ringed dancers but distinguishable by the amount of blue at the abdominal tip and the lack of amber wing pigment. Blue-fronted, powdered and blue-ringed dancer females have similar shoulder stripes, but the former two species lack the dark line beneath.http://observeyourpreserve.org/species/blue-ringed-dancer

Habitat:

Diverse Marsh, Immature Bottomland Forest, Prairie Re-creation, Prairie/Wetland Creation, River or Stream http://observeyourpreserve.org/species/b...

Notes:

I think they are strikingly beautiful!