Beautiful demoiselle

Females can lay up to 300 eggs at a time on water-crowfoot or similar emergent or floating plants. Like the banded demoiselle, they often submerge underwater to do so. The eggs hatch around 14 days after. The larvae are stick-shaped and have long legs. They develop over a period of two years in submerged vegetation, plant debris, or roots. They usually overwinter in mud or slime.

The larvae of the beautiful demoiselle develop over 10 to 12 stages, each of which takes place between a moult. The body length varies and depends on environmental conditions. In the final stage (F-0-stage), larvae reach from 3.5 to 4.6 millimetres and weigh about 4 milligrams, slightly below the banded demoiselle. The larvae of the beautiful demoiselle can be recognized by the bristles and the severity of the tracheal gills on their abdomen.

The body of the larvae shows only a relatively small adjustment to the fast-flowing waters of their habitat. The body is not flattened, but it is very slim. The legs are long and end with strong claws. Because they reside within the water body, and mainly in quiet areas, the danger of being swept by the flow is relatively low. If this happens, they stretch as much as possible to get in touch with the vegetation or the substrate to come.

Immature male. The blue wing color develops with age

This species can reach a body length of 49–54 millimetres (1.9–2.1 in),[5][6] with a hindwing length of 31–37 millimetres (1.2–1.5 in).[5] These large, dark damselflies have small, lateral, and hemispherical eyes, two pairs of wings similar in shape and a slender abdomen. Wings have a dense internal network of veins and can be transparent at their basal area or uniformly colored. This species presents an evident sexual dimorphism in colour pattern.[5]

The male usually has much more extensive pigmentation on the wings than other Calopteryx species in its range. In the southeast of its range (the Balkans and Turkey), the wings are entirely metallic blue. In other areas, the wings have clear spots at the base and the tip. Immature males have brown wings, as the metallic blue wing color develops only with age.[7] They have metallic blue-green bodies and blue-green eyes.[5]

The female has dark brown iridescent wings, a white patch near the tip of the wings (called a pseudopterostigma) and a metallic green body with a bronze tip of the abdomen.[5]

This species is rather similar to the banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens), another British damselfly with coloured wings.[7]

Biotope of Calopteryx virgo

Blue-winged demoiselles live mainly near small to medium-sized streams and creeks.[7] They prefer a relatively low water temperature and a moderate to fast flow. The water must not be nutrient-rich (eutrophic). In the northern part of their range, such as in Norway and Finland, they are also found near medium-sized rivers or even larger streams. The waters are usually in the immediate vicinity of forests.

The larvae live in the streams mentioned before and are mainly dependent on the water plants. The larvae need the stems and leaves to hold on, especially in areas with strong currents. Hence, it is extremely rare to find them in barren locations, flat expiring banks, or areas with a smooth stone floor. They also live in small natural lakes or ponds characteristic of limestones bedrock. They live in quiet areas between alluvial leaves or exposed roots of the vegetation. They can be found on submerged plants such as waterweed (Elodea sp.), floods for water crowfoot (Ranunculus fluitans) or other plants, submerged from a few centimetres to several decimetres.

Compared with the larvae of the banded demoiselle, the larvae of the blue-wing demoiselle prefer quieter areas of the water, since slower flows cause a more effective absorption of oxygen under water. Only in very rare cases the larvae are present in stagnant water. The larvae reside mainly in the vegetation.

An important factor for the occurrence of blue-wing demoiselles is the oxygen in the water. The larvae are much more sensitive to oxygen deficiency than the larvae of the banded demoiselle. Hence, they need sufficient oxygen saturation in the water. Waters with high levels of sediment and sludge are not a good a habitat for the larvae.

Another key factor for the occurrence of the larvae of the blue-wing demoiselle is the temperature of the water. This species prefers, unlike the banded demoiselle, the cooler and shadier areas of the water. The optimal temperature is a summer average between 13 and 18 °C. At temperatures above 22 °C, injuries of larvae were observed, as well as a reduced hatch ability of eggs. Individual populations may get used to permanently higher temperatures.

The habitat that the adults occupy, corresponds to the nearby larval habitat. Unlike the adults of the banded demoiselle you meet those of the beautiful demoiselle but also in forest clearings, but very rarely on the banks of larger ponds. As resting places, the insects need trees and shrubs, often resting on high herbaceous plants such as the large nettle (Urtica dioica).

The breeding habitats are similar to the larval habitat, these are cool, shady water-courses largely with a more or less strong current and near-natural vegetation and bank structure. This is mostly meadow and pasture streams in the area, they rarely pass through the forest. A distinct riparian vegetation also plays a role as a windbreak. Due to their broad wings, the beautiful demoiselle can be blown away by the wind more easily than other species of dragonflies.

Mating

Mating takes place in a way that for the genus Calopteryx and is typical of an eye-catching advertising behavior precedes. The females fly over the water, always in search of suitable nesting places and fly it through the territories of males. The males who recognize the females to the reflections of the moving wings, fly towards it, once they have crossed the border area. They use a striking Schwirrflug that only in the courtship will be shown, and demonstrate the underside of its abdomen raised high. The last three segments of it are much brighter and are referred to as a "lantern" that will be presented. The male leads in this way, the female to the nesting sites ("Show flight") and circled it on the water once it has settled out. Then in turn followed by a period of hovering flight and only if the female is sitting there and so his willingness to mate signaled it comes to mating. In return, the male is on the wings of the female and begins copulation, which can last between 40 seconds and 5 minutes, the animals themselves in the "mating wheel" can rely on the vegetation.

After mating, the male releases the female again and again shows this is the nesting place, the female abdomen with drooping sit for a few seconds ("post-copulatory rest") and then follows the male. The eggs are laid in the stems of aquatic plants in the water level and below, where the female can submerge up to 90 minutes. It climbs here (unlike almost all other species of dragonflies) upside down on the stem down and stabs the eggs with the egg-laying apparatus ( ovipositor ) almost vertically into the stems. During the nesting above the water surface while the female is the male defended against other males. Both sexes mate several times a day for several weeks until her death.

Females during oviposition

The eggs, in which the embryos develop, are on average about 1.2 millimetres long and have a spindle-shaped structure with approximately 0.2 millimeters wide. At the pointed end are, as with other demoiselles also a hole structure ( Mikropylenapparat ) with four holes to enable penetration of the sperm of the male. In addition, the egg of the banded demoiselle at the front end a funnel-like appendix unknown object, which projects at the inserted egg outwardly from the plant stem. The color of the egg changes from a bright yellow when freshly laid eggs on a yellow-brown to reddish brown when older egg.

Within the egg takes place, the embryonic development of the dragonfly. For the first time, this has been described for the blue-winged demoiselle 1869, but it represented the first description of the embryonic development of an insect at all. From outside the progression of the development by a slight change in length as well as by changing the shape is recognizable. It bulges on the upper part of the egg slightly, while the lower part deforms concave. The development itself can be divided into three sections: • the early development, when it forms after fertilization of the ovum by dividing the basic shape of body • definitely the development with the final formation of the body shape until they hatch from the egg • the larval development of the hatched larva up to the formation of the winged imago

The embryo in the egg can last between 20 days and one month.

The larval development of the Blue-winged demoiselle takes into Middle Eastern waters, usually between six and nine weeks, mainly due to the preference of cooler waters, it is usually somewhat longer than that of the banded demoiselle. At the end of larval development, it comes to winter and the development until the following year with the metamorphosis to the imago completed (univoltine development). The cooler water is a breeding, the greater the proportion of larvae that pass through the two winter periods and therefore a development of nearly two years (semivoltine development). Studies have shown that this might modify the relationship between univoltine and semivoltinen larvae within a body of water and clear in the course of the river and increase the water temperature moves toward univoltiner larvae.

Like all these predatory dragonfly larvae live. They feed primarily on insect larvae such as those of the black flies, midges, stoneflies and mayflies, as well as amphipods. They are defending their seats against other dragonfly larvae, especially those of its own kind.

The larvae are much more sensitive to changes in habitat than the banded demoiselle, especially to temperature fluctuations. Already after a few days deprivation increases mortality rapidly, and after again prevail acceptable oxygen conditions, it is still too long after, birth defects and an increased mortality rate among affected animals. This is mainly because they absorb the oxygen from the water inefficient. Was able to detect in experiments that even larvae of the banded demoiselle, who had been removed completely. The thin-skinned, tracheogenic body attachments for oxygen uptaking from the water, under normal circumstances are still less sensitive to fluctuations in the oxygen supply. The inefficiency of oxygen uptake is balanced by the choice of habitat, since both increased flow and cooler water absorption capacity.

Male prior to flight

The first adults of dragonflies emerge, depending on the weather, at the end of April to the end of September.[7] The main hatching time lies in the days of late May to late June. The emergence, i.e. the transformation of the larvae to adults and the associated leaving the water, is not synchronous and lasts throughout the season until about mid-July. The newly hatched dragonflies spend after leaving the larval shell (exuvia ) is the first time until full coloration in the vegetation surrounding the water body. This aging period usually lasts about 10 days, after which they return to the waters. The adult animals live only one season, it was a lifetime determined from about 40 to 50 days.

Exuvia

Throughout the day there are males in sunlit waters are already in the early morning (in Central Europe between 7.00 and 9.00 o'clock), where they stay forever in the areas that are exposed directly. In the aquatic environment, shaded according to the animals appear later, usually basking in the tops of the surrounding vegetation. Females fly over during the day, the waters in search of suitable nesting sites, the main activity of both sexes such as hunting, advertising, mating and egg laying occurs in the warm midday hours. At night the animals as well as sit in the early morning sun-drenched coves in the vegetation at these sites, they also spend the night.

The radius of action and thus the distance between breeding, hunting and rest area is in the males of 20–100 meters and is therefore very small, the females were observed, however walking distances of up to four miles per day.