Beautiful Demoiselle on stinging nettlesI have been looking at Dragonflies and Damselflies.
Today the Demoiselle comes under my spotlight.
The photograph above was taken in Llandeilo, Wales, UK, on 12 June 2010.
I thought I had missed the creature altogether,
so although this photo isn't great,
it was a bonus.
I had already failed to photograph a different one,
flitting through the stinging nettles
at the edge of the Guardian Hay Festival site in May.
The Demoiselle in the photograph above was seen
at Dunster in Somerset back in July 2005,
in very close proximity to a large Slow Worm -
yet another creature to escape my lens.
I have blown it up to a ridiculous size below,
just for the colours.
The photo below
gives a reasonable overall impression of this exquisite
and iridescent species.
gives a reasonable overall impression of this exquisite
and iridescent species.
I think this creature above may be a maleBeautiful Demoiselle.
Demoiselles are in fact Damselflies.
We have two varieties in the UK:
the Beautiful Demioselle [Calopteryx virgo]
and
the Banded demoiselle [Calopteryx splendens],
which has less hairy legs!
The latter frequents slow-running waterways.
Demoiselles display colourful courtship rituals.
The Banded Demoiselle has deep blue areas on each wing,
and it is these that transmit signals to the female.
It is worth pausing to consider the matter of iridescence.
The play and quality of light at a given moment effects the colours registered by our eyes.
The 'Explore' section of the July-September 2010 WWT Waterlife magazine
has a helpful feature in its kids' zone on p.42,
explaining how the iridescence factor
effects the colours we associate
with that other iridescent icon,
the Kingfisher.
- Odonata under threat [April 2008]: The Daily Mail
- Banded Demoiselle on the BBC site
- Biological Records Centre: Demoiselle Fact File
- Demoiselles on binocularface
- Iridescence on physics.org
- Details of a Swansea University conference about the protein source from insects that could be exploited (and a new insect treatment for MRSA - not for the faint-hearted!)
