• Butterflies
• Dragonflies
• Damselflies
• Tiger beetles
• Hike with Mike

• damselfly families
  • Broad-Winged Damsels
  • Pond Damsels
  • Spreadwings
• Pond Damsels
  • Eastern Red Damsel
  • Blue-fronted Dancer
  • Variable Dancer
  • Powdered Dancer
  • Springwater Dancer
  • Blue-tipped Dancer
  • Aurora Damsel
  • Subarctic Bluet
  • Taiga Bluet
  • River Bluet
  • Rainbow Bluet
  • Azure Bluet
  • Double-striped Bluet
  • Boreal Bluet
  • Tule Bluet
  • Familiar Bluet
  • Alkali Bluet
  • Northern Bluet
  • Marsh Bluet
  • Stream Bluet
  • Skimming Bluet
  • Hagen’s Bluet
  • Orange Bluet
  • Slender Bluet
  • Vernal Bluet
  • Vesper Bluet
  • Citrine Forktail
  • Lilypad Forktail
  • Fragile Forktail
  • Eastern Forktail
  • Sphagnum Sprite
  • Sedge Sprite

Springwater Dancer

(Argia plana)

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

I saw this species for the first time on September 5, 2005 at Hardscrabble SNA east of Hazel Green in Lafayette County. I first had seen a mated pair and did not even recognize that it was a Dancer, but when I saw a single male it was obviously a new species. I wasn’t sure what species it was, and took out both Damselflies of the North Woods, and Ed Lam’s book, Damselflies of the Northeast, but it wasn’t in either book! I knew that there was some Dancer previously found in Wisconsin that I hadn’t seen, so I knew that it wasn’t a new species for the state.

I saw several mated pairs flitting over the watercress that covered the shallow stream just east of the State Natural Area. This species has a late date of September 9 in Iowa, but it appears that this population may be present after that date.