Familiar Bluet
(Enallagma civile)
I am not very familiar with Familiar Bluets in central Wisconsin. I have seen this species twice, once on October 11, 2003 and once on September 7, 2003. The photo on the top right was taken in Ohio. The book on Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio said that this was the easiest of the Bluets to identify. I do not know for sure, but in the field, this damselfly appeared to have much more blue that any other damselfly and it was longer than any of the similar Bluets. This species appeared to be about the size of a Stream Bluet, the largest, mostly black Bluet in Wisconsin. In addition, it was a strong flier. Right after I took this photo, I watched him fly up, up, and out of sight, something that I had previously only seen larger dragonflies do. The Familiar Bluets that I saw on September 7 were not as big as the one I saw in Ohio and were not much bigger than the Marsh Bluets that inhabited the same small pond a month before. In 2004, I finally got to see many Familiar Bluets in Wisconsin, but they were in Trempealeau County.