Damselflies sometimes carry water mites

 Damselflies are less famous than their relatives, the dragonflies. They are far more delicate in appearance, much smaller, and mostly fold their wings when resting making it more difficult to spot them. 

Like dragonflies, the damselflies are mostly found near water (rivers, ponds, lakes), but some species are also found readily in gardens - especially gardens that have unkempt lawns with abundant grass.

Swati and I kept such an unkempt garden in our Udaipur home and were often visited by the Three-striped Blue Dart, Pseudagrion decorum, damselfly. One of these individuals carried a load on its side!

On the side of the thorax was a dark clump - a group of water mites. When viewed from above, it became obvious that this particular damselfly was a mite-favourite. There were quite a few mites on both sies of the thorax.

    The additional load did not appear to impact the damselfly in any obvious way. It flitted about catching mosquitoes and other small insects. A week later, a damselfly in the garden (the same one as before?) also had water mites, but only a couple of them. The mites had apparently jumped off and may have used the damselfly to disperse. This method of dispersal where one species uses another is termed "phoresy". Fewer mites or not, the damselfly was busy chomping all the mosquitoes it could catch!

Between 2017 and 2023, we saw only three damselflies in our garden with mites, out of several dozen observations of damselflies. The third damselfly was also seen within a week of the other two - all in October 2022. The rains had been unusually worse for a month that is normally a post-monsoon month with very little rain. Were the mites a consequence of increased rains? 

Like with most wildlife species, there is little ecological work conducted on damselflies in India. However, there is considerable work conducted elsewhere on water mites and damselflies, and these provide some interesting findings. 

• Mark Forbes and Robert Baker found that smaller and lighter damselflies carried many more mites. It may be that weaker individuals were more susceptible.
• Leung and others found that mites latched on to damselflies closer to emergence - they were clearly watching and waiting!
• Andres and Cordero's cool study found that while mites did not affect damselfly survival, heavily-parasitized male damselflies mated much less than damselflies with fewer mites. 
• Nagei and others noticed that the water mites were sort of good at escaping when their damselfly hosts were being eaten by dragonflies. Semi-engorged mites were all eaten up - clearly too busy feeding themselves. However, half of the fully engorged mites managed to drop off in time to escape being eaten. The little chaps were clearly great at survival, but only after they had had their fill! 

It was fairly yucky to view the parasitic mites close up. But the research work being done on them showed the mite-damselfly interactions to be rather cool. Now we are wondering how many damselfly species in India carry water mites, and why 2022 was such a good year for the mites in Udaipur.

 (All photographs were taken between 11 and 22 October 2022 in Arihant Greens, Uddaipur.) 

Ground orchids: Discovering the Nervillia aragoan (or concolor)

 Among the most memorable times in Udaipur for Swati and I were the weekend trips we undertook with Dr. Anil and Dr. Satish Sharma. These trips covered protected forests, grasslands, sacred groves, streams within the Aravalli valleys, and community conserved areas. 

A perk of such trips was the deep knowledge both individuals had of the plants of the region. One of these trips was exclusively to see if the Tall Shield Orchid Nervillia aragoan had flowered.

The Aravalli mountains are a tough sell for most plants, let alone tubers that need some soil. Most areas have shallow soils, but this is adequate for the ground orchid Dr. Satish wanted to show us. It had been drizzling on and off for a few days, and conditions, we were told, were perfect for the orchid to emerge. 

After a long drive from Udaipur city, we stopped beside a grove of trees. Dr. Satish led us to the shade of of these tall trees where he knew these orchids lay buried. As we approached the slope, his face burst into a beaming smile. The orchid flowers were bobbing in the gentle breeze that had caught up with us.

Green flowers were not what I was expecting, but the grace and delicacy the colouration brought to the orchids were nothing short of spectacular. The stems were short and held half a dozen or so flowers each. From the front, the "orchid" nature of the flowers became obvious.

The tinge of purple around the rim was magnificent. Some bees roamed around the flowers, but we could not see any obvious ones that were pollinators of these flowers during our short stay.

However, the pollinators had been doing their job. Green fruits and riper fruits hung on some of the stalks telling of orchids that had flowered earlier than our visit.

Like in many ground orchids, the leaves of Nervillia aragoana emerge after the fruiting is complete. Each flowering stalk is followed by a single folded-up leaf. Several of these neat structures poked through the ground all around us. Leaves were unfolding and were in various states, including the neat fully opened single leaves. I would not have known that this was an orchid!

You can read more about this species on the wikipedia article which has included the excellent botanical sketches of the flowers and leaves.

(All photographs were taken on 24 June 2023.)

Ground orchids: Meet the Corduroy Orchid Eulophia nuda

The monsoons bring a lot out of the landscape, including the seasonal ground orchids. This group have underground tubers and throw out an inflorescence in response to the rains. In Belgaum city (yea yea, Belagavi!), I met the Corduroy Orchid. These orchids are proliferating in the large green spaces of the city - a reminder of them being remnants of the western ghats forests that are not too far from the city. 

As if its overall look was not enough, the flowers have a lot of detail especially on the petal - the coloured lip as it were. This detail was perhaps the inspiration behind its common name - corduroy.

The variety of colours of this orchid stumped me - all risen beside each other. Check out this glorious one below we called "purple" for lack of better eye-sight. The corduroy pattern on this one was easily visible.

The other colour flowering was "pink".

The white inflorescence had the oldest flowers, at the bottom of the stalk, turning yellow. Was this perhaps a signal to insects that the flower had been pollinated?

The difference in colouration was stark - it had to be a signal to someone, or something. See the yellow below, followed by the white photographed from the same stalk.

This post has been put up in the early days of the monsoon (May 2024), and I could not wait for the fruits to form. Those will come soon. Also, in this species, the leaves emerge briefly after the flowering and fruiting is done. That too, fingers crossed, will be posted soon!

(All photographs taken in May 2024)