![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/AmericanRubyspotCreditRiverErindaleParkfromNaturalCrooksDotCom.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLooking it up at home confirmed that it was a male American Rubyspot damselfly. The \u201cAmerican\u201d part refers to North America not just to the USA. According to a University of Texas website<\/strong><\/a>, this damsel flies almost everywhere from Canada through the US.<\/p>\n According to BugGuide.net<\/strong><\/a>, the males have a red thorax, and the females have either copper or green on the thorax.\u00a0 From what I can tell, and I am not an expert!, none of the Rubyspots that I have found so far is a female. That shouldn\u2019t be surprising: all of these males were looking for a female too and weren\u2019t having much luck!<\/p>\n An article on the UW-Milwaukee Field Station website<\/strong><\/a> says that the females have significantly less red on the wings and that this may give them an advantage when feeding. Females marked with more red did not gain weight as quickly as those left in their original colouring.<\/p>\n The second time I walked along the Credit after first identifying these colourful male damsels, I kept a look out for more. Somewhat to my surprise, at two other locations I found American Rubyspots perched on flat rocks in the river watching and waiting. They were quite exposed locations. If you look closely, you can even see a discarded fishing weight on one of the rocks.<\/p>\n Two other damselflies I admired were Ebony Jewelwings and some type of Spreadwing.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll keep an eye out for more American Rubyspots as I continue my walks this fall. Unlike some damselflies, these ones fly right into the autumn season. Who knows, I may find a female yet!<\/p>\n UPDATE: Two weeks after I saw my first known Rubyspots, I finally found a female! It didn’t stay still long so I didn’t get a good photo in the heavily overcast afternoon. But I did see her and I have this photo as proof. I’ll keep trying for a better image of course.<\/p>\n Related Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n Join In <\/strong><\/p>\n Have you seen one of these colourful damsels waiting for his lady to land nearby? Please share your sighting with a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes finding a new creature is just a matter of slowing down and looking a bit more closely. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,4],"tags":[416,418,417],"class_list":["post-3906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus","category-insects","tag-american-rubyspot","tag-damselflies","tag-ebony-jewelwing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3906"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3926,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906\/revisions\/3926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Was This a Male or Female American Rubyspot?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nHow Easy Is It to Find American Rubyspots in Erindale Park?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nA female Ebony Jewelwing<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nAn unknown type of Spreadwing Damselfly.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nMale American Rubyspot<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThis female American Rubyspot has “amber” wings that are pinkish near the shoulders, yellow lines on the thorax and a green bit, and a bit of bronzy-green to the abdomen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n