Common Spreadwing

Fascinating facts about the Common Spreadwing

• When it rests, the emerald damselfly holds its wings half-open, a posture that marks the Lestidae family. This habit is why it is called a spreadwing. It often perches among reeds where its metallic green colour blends with the vegetation, providing good camouflage. The half-opened wings are also noted in descriptions of its typical resting pose.
• Mating pairs of Lestes sponsa stay together for an extended period, with copulation lasting between 30 and 60 minutes. After the male transfers sperm, the pair remains in tandem while the female deposits her eggs. In regions with short breeding seasons, such as high latitudes, the couple completes copulation more quickly but with greater intensity. This behaviour follows the typical dragonfly tandem mating away from water.
• The female emerald damselfly inserts her eggs into the tissue of submerged aquatic plants, and she can remain underwater for up to half an hour while doing so. This behaviour lets her place eggs securely within the plant material. Occasionally she will lay eggs on vegetation that is above the water surface, choosing spots that will later become submerged as water levels rise. Such egg placement ensures the embryos develop in a protected, moist environment.
• In Japan the time it takes for Lestes sponsa to become sexually mature varies with climate, averaging 20 days in cooler northern areas and up to 120 days in hotter southern regions. Adults emerge in July and remain on the wing until September, but they are not sexually mature when they first appear. They need at least a week, and often longer, depending on conditions, before they can breed.
• The first larval stage of Lestes sponsa hatches from the egg in spring and is a specialised, short-lived phase that often lasts only minutes. This prolarva has no limbs and cannot feed, but it can move by jumping or wriggling, and if it hatches away from water it will keep moving until it finds a pond. Once it reaches water it molts into the second stadia stage, beginning the active hunting phase of its development.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Common Spreadwing

As the sun casts its warm rays upon the tranquil waters, the Common Spreadwing, with its iridescent blue body and delicate wings, dances across the surface, its slender form weaving in and out of the vegetation with effortless elegance. With a gentle flutter, it alights upon a blade of grass, its wings beating in a slow, hypnotic rhythm as it surveys its surroundings with an unblinking gaze. In this serene and idyllic world, the Common Spreadwing reigns supreme, a tiny, jeweled monarch, its beauty and agility a testament to the wonders of the natural world.

More insects and spiders to discover

Browse Feravox