Starting in summer 2017, a study of smoky rubyspot damselflies was launched through iNaturalist. The goal of this study, run by researchers at UCLA and Durham University (in the U.K.), was to learn more about how wing coloration changes through time and in different locations by recruiting participants to submit their photographs of smoky rubyspots.

Overall, hundreds of ‘citizen scientists’ from across North America submitted a total of more than 600 photographs to the project. So far, the researchers have measured the relative size of male smoky rubyspots’ wingspots from these photographs.

One interesting result from this study is that the amount of dark wing pigment on males varies predictably across space and time. Although the amount of dark pigmentation increases toward the middle of summer in all locations, the maximum extent of pigmentation that males express is drastically different in different parts of the range.

For instance, here is a photograph of a male from Texas in July:

Compare this to a male on the Pacific Coast of Mexico in July:

And a male from Virginia in July:

We report these results, along with other details, in a scientific manuscript, now published in the journal Ecography, available to view here.

These findings are only the beginning. In the future, we will develop new methods to extract measurements of female wing color (e.g., how light or dark they are), in order to understand how female traits also vary.

To continue building on our analyses, we hope that iNaturalist users, who were an integral part of this project's success, will continue to observe and submit observations of smoky rubyspots throughout their range.

We are mapping smoky rubyspot (Hetaerina titia) wing coloration across its range.  Smoky rubyspots vary widely in wing coloration, with some individuals having fully black hindwings while other individuals having only brownish-red wingspots at the base of their wings.

We know that this coloration varies seasonally in parts of its range, with light individuals emerging in early spring and darker individuals predominating during the summer. However, much of the diversity in wing coloration across the range of smoky rubyspots remains unknown.

That’s where iNaturalist comes in! We are hoping that citizen scientists can help us fill in gaps in our understanding of how wing coloration varies in time (e.g., by visiting a stream with smoky rubyspots a couple of times each year) and in space.

When submitting photos, please include the location and date of the photograph. If you are submitting multiple photographs, please indicate whether there are repeated photographs of the same individual or whether you are submitting multiple different individuals. Finally, any information on the number of smoky rubyspots that you saw where you took the photo would be very helpful.

This research is funded by the National Science Foundation (DEB Award #1457844) and UCLA. For more information, or to get in touch, visit rubyspot.org.

Four Tips for Photographing Damselflies:

(1) Photograph the damselfly's wings perpendicular to the camera. This way, the entire wing surface is visible in the photo. For example, this:





Is better than this:





(2) Get as close as possible to the damselfly. Being closer to the subject yields a better photograph, but be aware that they may flee from humans if they are too close.


(3) Photograph the damselflies in front of a light background, so that their wings contrast with the background.


(4) When possible, photograph the damselflies in the sun. If the subject is in the shade, you may need to increase your ISO (800-1600+ should do the trick), or decrease your aperture (f8-f12 is fine).  Make sure that your shutter speed is greater than 1/60 at the very minimum, but 1/200 or above is best. Using the flash is also an option, however use caution when deploying the flash, as the flash often catches on surrounding foliage and may cause the subject to appear dark.