In my last post regarding the newly discovered colony of Variable Damselflies at Weldon I showed a photo of a male attempting to mate with an unidentified female. At the time I suspected that this was possibly a female Azure which would explain why the male did not press on with his clear intention to breed. Unable to see either the bar linking the eye spots or the pronotum I couldn't say with absolute certainty which species this was. Fast forward a day and our county recorder on the always informative Northants dragonfly facebook page pointed out that this particular female had a rather gruesome reminder of a previous mating attempt visible in the photograph.
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| Male Variable Damselfly attempting to mate with female. |
As can be clearly seen (and I don't know how I missed it!) there is a small section of a male's abdomen still clasped firmly to the spot behind her head. Clearly he had been predated, probably by a dragonfly, while in the act of mating and she had managed to make good her escape. On many occasions both partners are consumed so she really did enjoy some good fortune. Unfortunately although this means that the female is in all likelihood a Variable it also means she will not be able to add to the small colony here. Nature really can be a ruthless business but also a very interesting one and that I suppose is why we all keep watching.
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| Close up of female showing the remains of a male still clasped behind her head and also a very feint bar linking her eyes. |
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