We vacation every year down in AR on Bull Shoals Lake. And every year when I'm laying on a float in the water, I have damselflies land on me. I had one last year that I swear came to see me each day. I called him Rufus. This year was no different and I had another Rufus that liked to land on me and didn't mind me bring my hand up closer to my face to get a better look at him. I thought I'd share a few pictures of all my buddies.
Here's how they normally are, this time they were concentrated on my arm/hand
More this time......
and another of my Rufus........
Here he is on my shoulder........
Wow!! That's pretty neat!!!
At one point, I hooked my feet on the ladder and was just laying backwards into the water. Only a small circle of my face was above the water, my eyes, a little of my forehead, my nose and my lips. He kept landing on my nose! That picture is priceless...lol...
Awww, your buddy from last year blessed you with offspring to come and hang out with (on) you.
Those photos of those damselflies are the best.
What I want to know, is when they're mating, the one in the back (bottom) moves it's tail or whatever you call it around, like he's feeling around. When he does that, it stings. What is he doing?
This should explain it-
http://www.museums.org.za/bio/insects/odonata/index.htm
Check this out-
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0621_050622_gay_flies.html
You know, I didn't realize it was the female on the bottom. I have only seen her once with her tail up at the male. Always the male with his tail in her neck. The male is a dark blue, the female is a black with yellow stripes. She looks black anyway, might be brown as the one article said. It was actually pretty cool when I had 2 joined together on my leg last year. I spent 3 weeks there and my sister was there for a weekend. She was floating next to me and I saw it first and psst over to her. They were making a perfect heart with the way they were joined. I wish I had a water camera! I would of loved to have gotten a shot of that.
Neat isn't it?
More than you know.....
It is neat to see and hear about it. You are lucky you can handle that. If a bug lands on me I can feel it and it drives me nuts. Exceptions are mosquitos cause I don't feel them on me. Only feel the itching from the bite. And I have had a butterfly or 2 on me this year and it didn't bother me. I was excited when that happened!! lol.
I can feel them too, they just don't bother me. They're my buddies...lol. They've been landing on me for years. I have found out that possibly she's one of the kinds that thrust their opipositor (end of their tail) into plant tissue to lay their eggs. That's too funny....she might be trying to use me as a surrogate mommy for her babies....lol.
lol. That would be funny.
