Agencies
Services
fragile forktail
fragile forktail (Ischnura posita) [female]
Photo © Mary Kay Rubey
fragile forktail (Ischnura posita) [male]
Photo © Mary Kay Rubey
Features and Behaviors
FEATURES
The fragile forktail is a very small damselfly known for the sideways exclamation mark (!) on its thorax. Males have green eyes and yellow-green faces. The thorax and abdomen are mostly black with light green sides and markings. Rarely, in both males and females, the tip of the abdominal segments nine and ten are blue. Immature females appear as male but with blue thorax and spots behind the eyes.
BEHAVIOR
Both males and females usually linger among dense herbaceous, shrubby, or floating vegetation, like lily pads or pondweeds. They are likely to emerge during cooler, cloudy weather when predation from larger dragonflies and damselflies decreases. Males perch at varying heights, from the surface of the water to three feet up in stems. Females lay eggs alone on floating plants and stems rising from the water. Females are predators of other damselflies. They like spring-fed ditches, lake shores, ponds, swamps, and slow streams where herbaceous vegetation abounds. Often found in dense sedge or grass beds, though also present in shady woodland areas with herbaceous plant beds. Fragile forktails have a high tolerance for polluted areas. They are found throughout Illinois. Their range is south to the tip of Florida, northeast to New England, west to western Oklahoma and Texas, south through Mexico, and into Guatemala.
Illinois Range
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Odonata
Family: Coenagrionidae
Illinois Status: common, native
