Three Postures of a Congo Dragonfly

By Bruce G. Marcot, Ecology Picture of the Week:

This female skimmer dragonfly was putting on a show, striking at least these three specific postures in the morning tropical heat of equatorial Africa.  Why?  What was the purpose?

Dragonflies adjust their postures as a form of "behavioral thermoregulation" -- to regulate their body temperature.  

In the third photo in this sequence, this dragonfly has raised her abdomen to near-vertical and drooped her wings to provide shade to her thorax to minimize exposure to sunlight.  Dragonfly experts call this the "obelisk" posture.   

Other postures, however, may be less easy to explain.  Perhaps they adjust their wings for more aerodynamic reasons, or perhaps to display for territorial or mate-attraction purposes, although dragonflies tend to display in flight rather than on perch.  

  --Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.