The life of the dragon fly is a good one. You laze around by the creek flying and dipping into the water. Every now and again they take part in organized games like this "chicken fight" in which different bugs try to knock each other off the backs of other bugs. Ahhh the days of summer.Chicken Fight!
The life of the dragon fly is a good one. You laze around by the creek flying and dipping into the water. Every now and again they take part in organized games like this "chicken fight" in which different bugs try to knock each other off the backs of other bugs. Ahhh the days of summer.
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From the website of the Derbyshire Dragonfly Society, a group for British dragonfly enthusiasts:
Courtship in Dragonflies is minimal or absent. It may take place but may be too short lived or subtle to be observed. The courtship of the Agrion Damselflies is well known and documented. It is quite a hypnotic spectacle. With most Dragonflies it is a straight forward grab of the female if she is willing. She will not respond if she has already mated.
Once the Dragonflies male has grasped the female at the back of her head with his anal claspers the act of mating can take place in the air, on the ground or perched amongst vegetation. It can last a matter of seconds or up to several hours. The processes and the genital structures involved are quite unique in the insect world.
Some time before mating, often many hours before, since it may be the first thing the male performs on reaching his perch in the morning, the male dragonfly transfers his sperm from his normal genital opening near the end of the abdomen (below the 9th segment,the organ is functional but inadequate to ensure impregnation of the female) to the unique accessory genitalia situated below the second and third abdominal segments (these are copulatory organs which are not connected to the gonads.) This is done by bending the tip of his abdomen around until it touches the accessory organs either in flight or when perched.
The accessory organs are then 'charged ' ready with sperm for direct contact with the female copulatory organs, which lie at the tip of her abdomen. These accessory genitalia consist of a sperm bladder for storage of sperm; a structure which corresponds in function to a penis; and some grasping organs which can grip the female's copulatory organs during mating.
Research has recently shown that these spoon like appendages can clean out the female of sperm from previous couplings to make sure that the male mating can fertilise the eggs to be laid.
You mean these dragonflies are.......
Yes, yes they are. I must say, this blog is a bit prudish. Animals do sex, they have to!
Research has recently shown that these spoon like appendages can clean out the female of sperm from previous couplings
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