Coenagrionid damselflies, at least those that frequent the pools of city parks, tend to keep their wings closed and their profiles low when they have chosen a perch, which is usually one close to the water and removed from the line of sight of visitors with grand visions but little inkling of what passes under their eyes. Generally small but stoutly built and possessing short legs and stalked wings, pond damsels outnumber all other Zygopteran families in speciosity, and many have prospered as brooks and seeps gave way to reservoirs of still water, suburban cauldrons that bubble with tangled filaments and boil with a flood of invasive bodies.
Tolerant of pollution, poor oxygen levels and high temperatures, coenagrionids dominate the near-invisible community of insects that swarm in the reeds and rushes after releasing themselves from the freedom of their aquatic forms. Every day, particularly in the first and final hours of light, barren nymphs and sexless grubs emerge to take flight, suck on the juices of flowers and furry things, and run a gauntlet of appetites for haemolymph. The lucky ones survive to bag their own supplies of protein and convert these nutrients into a stockpile of gametes that will be exchanged and expelled into silt, damp soil and the slits of soft stems.
One tribe of coenagrionids occupy a niche of their own, having reduced themselves into mere slivers in miniature swamplands. A much more apparent damselfly at artificial waterways and concrete basins, especially those with a sprinkle of waterlilies, is the blue sprite, a caerulean matchstick of undeniable beauty and indiscriminate tastes, being equally at home by both natural fringes as well as hard grey banks. The adults are active late in the afternoon, with males patrolling floating quadrangles of marshworts and lilypads and meeting in midair to size each other up and claim bragging rights over imagined victories. The females are by no means drab, but their brown and green markings offer scant contrast compared to the boys in black and blue. Both sexes, on their own and in tandem, are unaccountably sensitive to breaches of their perimeters, darting off with infuriating haste to float over their hunting ground and alight on distal blades.
A coenagrionid with quite different habits is the the common bluetail, which can be encountered in a greater range of elevations and is of a much more sedentary bent. Habitatwise, Ischnura senegalensis rivals Pseudagrion microcephalum – the former occurs in disturbed corners as well as healthier wetlands and the inward edge of mangroves. Elsewhere, it has been found in saltpans and sulphurous springs, while a close cousin breeds in short-lived puddles in the deserts of North Africa. The genus is also known for polymorphic females, including andromorphs or forms that mimic males. This may be an adaptive trait that allows andromorphs, despite their greater visibility to predators, to forage and lay eggs with little harassment from imperceptive conspecifics, particularly when a species exists in high densities and maintains fluid territories. It seems that when the going is good and mates are there for the picking, it pays to cheat and secure dalliances only from those with an eye for damsels in cis dress.
The final nub in this trinity of commons is a coenagrionid with beguiling colours and beastly manners. The ornate coraltail is a beady-eyed terror of forest margins, lacustrine vegetation and well-planted gardens, where adults cling to low shrubs and launch sorties at passing midges or glean bugs from nearby leaves. Teneral kin and even larger damselflies are not spared, and it's a wonder that individuals can suppress their hunger long enough to recognise fate from food. But still many do, breaking off from their watch to engage in a war of the sexes that starts from a position of proximate intimacy and ends from the inside out with a grip of mutual distrust.
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