{"id":11325,"date":"2014-08-07T16:59:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T23:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=11325"},"modified":"2014-08-10T08:16:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T15:16:40","slug":"damselfly-mating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=11325","title":{"rendered":"Damselfly mating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Damselflies are\u00a0mating\u00a0again.<\/p>\n<p>Courtship is simple: The male looks for a good egg-laying site and then shows it off to a potential mate. Usually the site is\u00a0an aquatic weed near\u00a0the water&#8217;s surface, but this particular damselfly male has ineptly chosen a muskrat. Lots of luck with this one, buddy.\u00a0\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11329\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/damselfly140707ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once a male (blue) finds a female (brown), he grabs the back of her neck with his cerci and seeks a landing spot. Mating takes place in the wheel position.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11328\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/damselfly140707as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Female damselflies seem happy to mate with many males and use the fertilization principle: last in, first out&#8212;that is, the last sperm deposited is used to fertilize the eggs. So to protect his investment, a male maintains his grip on her neck and accompanies her to an\u00a0egg-laying spot. Here, she is depositing eggs\u00a0on an aquatic weed.\u00a0<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11326\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/damselfly140706cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Normally, that is that. However, on a few occasions I have seen him force her head below the water&#8217;s surface while she lays. Such a sight is a tad jarring: Is he now drowning her? Actually, no. An insect breathes through openings (spiracles) in its abdomen rather than nostrils on its face. Holding her head underwater presents\u00a0no more of a breathing problem than it would be for a human with a hand in the water. Note the two potential suiters on the left just awaiting the opportunity to take over.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11327\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/damselfly140706as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Damselflies are\u00a0mating\u00a0again. Courtship is simple: The male looks for a good egg-laying site and then shows it off to a potential mate. Usually the site is\u00a0an aquatic weed near\u00a0the water&#8217;s surface, but this particular damselfly male has ineptly chosen &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=11325\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11325"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11352,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions\/11352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}