Dancers along Bear Creek, California

On July 16th Leslie Flint and I joined Tim Manolis on an ode trip along Bear Creek. It's along route 20, west of Williams, and just past the junction where route 16 t-bones into route 20. The day started warm and reached 90+ when we quit at 2 pm. Not a place to go as a first-timer, or alone. Cell service non-existent and access to creekside habitats can be dicey.

We saw 20+ species of odes that day, including 15 dragonfly and roughly 5 damselfly species.

The three main genera of our Pond Damselfies (family Coenagrionidae) are the Bluets, Forktails, and Dancers. The Dancers, genus Argia, hold their folded wings above the abdomen, while Bluets and Forktails hold folded wings alongside the abdomen. Paulson informs us (Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West) that there some 111 species of Dancers in the world, of which 32 are seen in North America. We have 10 dancers in California (Manolis - Dragonflies and Damselflies of California). We tallied 4 of those along Bear Creek that day.

My favorites was Emma's Dancer, Argia emma. which we found along Bear Creek on the west side of route 16 on our way home. the male is a pretty light purple, with blue at the end of the abdomen at S-8-10. The 4 wings neatly overlap each other, which makes for less than clear venation patterns in a photo. Emma's Dancers are damsels of the northwest, extending down to Central California. Found mostly along rivers and large streams.

We found the Sooty Dancer, Argia lugens, at several locations. It's also a dancer of western states, but with a more restricted distribution than Emma's. The lack of color makes for less dramatic photos. Rounded forms on the bottom of S-2 may be water mites.

Another Sooty Dancer posed for a bit. Perhaps someone out there can tell us what the white bits hanging from the end of the abdomen are all about. The perch here may be on Dallis Grass, an invasive weed in wet areas.

Final dancer photo of the day is a marginal shot of what is likely a California or Aztec Dancer. The 2 species are quite similar and require close examination "in hand" by someone with a hand lens and strong experience for an accurate ID. Note how the abdominal segments are mostly blue, and how the black stripe on the side of the thorax is both slender and forked. Both Aztec (Argia nahuana) and California (Argia agriodes) are western species with considerable overlap in their distributions. Aztec's range extends well into Texas.

Lastly, I remembered that the Vivid Dancer, Argia vivida, was the first damselfly I ever photographed. This from a 2005 trip with Rich Stallcup to Mono Lake and points south.