River Jewelwing

Dragonflies make up one half of the order Odonata. The other half of the order is comprised of the damselflies. Damselflies are in the suborder Zygoptera, which means "same wings," that is because the size and shape of the damselflies wings are all roughly the same. In contrast dragonflies, who make up the suborder Anisoptera which means unlike wings, have different sized and shaped hindwings and forewings.

There are several other differences between dragons and damsels. First damselflies usually hold their wings together over their backs when perched, while dragons hold their wings flat out at a 90% angle, the exception to this are spreadwing damsels that hold their wings at a 45% angle. Most dragons, with the exception on clubtails have eyes that touch while damsels all have eyes that are seperated on their hammer shaped head.

There are three different families of damselflies, broad-winged, spreadwing and pond damselflies. The largest and usually most colorful damselflies belong to the broad-winged family. Broad-winged damsels, which includes ebony jewelwing, river jewelwing and American rubyspot in this area, are found almost exclusively around streams and rivers, although I have seen American rubyspot on the shores of lakes also.

The broad-winged damsels in the pictures above are called river jewelwings. Both the ebony jewelwing and the river jewelwing have a metallic colored thorax and abdomen that are most often green but can also appear blue depending on how the light hits them. The difference between the two is that ebony jewelwing have solid black colored wings while the river jewelwing have two toned colored wings as you can see in the photos. These photos where taken near the mouth of a couple of small tributaries of the St Croix River, the Snake River and the Sunrise River.