Western Red Damsel

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Identification

A tiny, stocky damselfly; mature males are red-orange with dark bronze on the thorax and abdomen, while females are duller orange or brown.

Mature males are red-orange with dark bronze on the thorax and abdomen; females are duller orange or brown. The species is shorter and stockier than Desert Firetail and typically occupies shallower, seepier ground.

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Documented range

Western Red Damsel ranges from British Columbia and Saskatchewan south to Baja California, New Mexico and Oklahoma; the checklist notes a possibly separate Minnesota–Wisconsin population.

Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah support western populations. Texas lies beyond the listed southwestern boundary.

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Habitat & flight period

Spring seeps, marshy trickles and saturated meadow edges, often in very shallow water with low dense vegetation.

Late spring and summer are typical, with emergence tracking snowmelt and warming at higher sites.

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Finding strategy

Search the lowest vegetation around shallow seeps and protect the substrate. The species may remain within a small wet patch rather than ranging over open water.

Scan the lowest vegetation at spring seeps, marshy trickles and saturated meadow margins, often within a very small wet patch. Stay outside soft substrate and photograph downward with a close-focusing telephoto rather than kneeling in the seep.

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Similar species

Desert Firetail is longer and associated with warmer open wetlands. Body proportions, habitat and pattern separate the two.

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Photography in the field

Stay outside saturated soil and use a close-focusing telephoto; the low perch may require angling the camera down rather than kneeling in the seep.

Protect the water edge, keep a working distance, and leave the insect and its perch as found.