American Rubyspot - Hetaerina americana

Exploring Bear Valley Creek (Colusa County) with the able guiding of Leslie Flint, we quickly came upon one of our targets for the day, the American Rubyspot, Hetaerina americana. These good-sized damselflies (about 1.75" long) are as big as some dragonflies, and their colorful broad wings make them easy to spot. They prefer streams and rivers with emergent vegetation, and have been seen in all lower 48 states except WA and ID.

The individuals we saw first were females, with purple-brown abdomen, light stripes on the thorax and a striking purple on the face and eyes. If you don't like Rubyspots then you definitely don't like dragonflies, because they don't come much prettier. The female has color all along the front of her wings, whereas the male (to follow) has large dark red spots at the base of the wings. Both are show-stoppers.

Recently I wrote about the Pond Damsels, a.k.a. Narrow-winged Damsels, a big family. The Rubyspots belong to a smaller family, the Broad-winged Damsels, a.k.a. Demoiselles. The scientific name for the family is Calopterygidae, which means "beautiful wings". (Botany fans no doubt remember that Calochortus means "beautiful hair".) I haven't seen Rubyspots in the immediate Bay Area, but we did see them on a trip to Pine Flat Road with Kathy Biggs, where they were found along the Russian River (Alexander Valley).

Now for the male:

The male American Rubyspot is difficult to describe, as the experience of viewing one is more visceral than one might expect from watching a perched insect. These photos don't capture the intense ruby color of the spot on the inner wing, but that's good, as it allows the eye to better see the rest of his finery. The male lacks the pterostigma (a.k.a. "stigma") so often seen in dragonflies along the outer leading edge of the wing. The female Rubyspot usually shows a small white stigma, although not obvious in the ones I photographed.

Another view:

So, just for review, damselflies, suborder Zygoptera, are small to medium-sized odonates whose eyes are separated and often look like they are on stalks. In dragonflies the eyes are bigger and often touch in the midline. Damsels usually have comparatively thinner abdomens, and their forward and rear wings are similar, whereas dragonflies are often stouter, and the forward wings differ in shape from the rear (that's what Anisoptera literally means). Damsels usually keep their wings folded together when perched, either above the body as in the Rubyspot, or alongside the body. The Spreadwing family of damsels is the exception, you would guess from their name.

Taxonomy: 

Order: Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies

Suborder: Zygoptera - Damselflies (5 families: Jewelwings, Spreadwings, Shadowdamsels, Threadtails and Pond Damsels.

Family: Calopterygidae - Broad-winged Damsels, or Demoiselles (Jewelwings). Demoiselle was old french for a young woman, or a "damsel". Here in the U.S. we find the Jewelwings (5) and the Rubyspots (3) to represent the family. But there are 3 other genera of Broad-wings seen elsewhere.

Genus: Hetaerina - Rubyspots. They are mostly tropical, with 37 species. 3 are seen in the U.S. - the other 2 are the Canyon Rubyspot and Smoky Rubyspot.

Species: Hetaerina americana - American Rubyspot. Maybe we should nominate this species as our "national dragonfly", or should we wait until it's recorded in WA and ID?