[Odonata-l] Odd behavior by damselfly

[Thomas Schultz]

Maybe these are cases of the dragonfly serving as a "superstimulus",  
similar to those beer "stubbies"  that release mating behavior in  
male Jewel Bottle Beetles.

Tom


Tom D. Schultz, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Denison University
Granville, OH 43023
740-587-6218
schultz at denison.edu






On Jul 24, 2008, at 4:42 PM, jt_johnson at comcast.net wrote:

> Though I don't necessarily think it's the case with this Enallagma  
> and Anax, I
> have once seen a male Argia vivida apparently try to go into tandem  
> with a
> female Octogomphus specularis. I described this incident in a short  
> piece called
> "Love Bites" in Argia 19(4). In this case the male Argia repeatedly  
> flew to the
> thorax area of the female Octogomphus while she rested on a log and  
> during its
> last attempt I noticed that it curved its abdomen down and forward  
> as though it
> was trying to make contact. Each time the Argia made a pass at the  
> Octomphus,
> she would fly up and chase him away, then return to the log. On his  
> third or
> fourth attempt she flew up, caught him and devoured him after  
> landing in a
> nearby alder (hence the title of the note).
>
> In the case of the Enallagma and Anax, it appears to me that he  
> simply found a
> perch to land on since he is so far back on the abdomen.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> Dennis Paulson wrote:
> Bruce ,
>
> I think the speculation in the article is only that. Male odonates
> are amazingly prone to try to mate with species of odonates other
> than their own, and this is very true for Enallagma (I assume the
> species here is E. cyathigerum), but I would have thought a female
> Anax imperator would be too large to offer such a stimulus. Most
> mismatched mating attempts are with species no more than 20% smaller
> or larger than the male of the pair. An ovipositing female can be
> quite still, so perhaps it just offered a perch site, and when the
> male Enallagma landed on it, it twitched in response, and the
> damselfly lifted off again. If it really was a mating attempt, those
> British damselflies are more desperate and/or confused than I would
> have thought possible.
>
> Dennis
>
> On Jul 21, 2008, at 6:46 AM, Bruce Grimes wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > A friend just sent th! is to m e.  I have my doubts on the theories
> > expressed for the  behavior.  Anyone have other thoughts?
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/6xxsw8
> >
> > Bruce Grimes
> _______________________________________________
> Odonata-l mailing list
> Odonata-l at listhost.ups.edu
> https://mailweb.ups.edu/mailman/listinfo/odonata-l

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailweb.ups.edu/pipermail/odonata-l/attachments/20080725/e815d201/attachment.html