Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta) male, Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 17 June 2016. Photo: Cindy Crosby
June 2025 DSA Species of the Month: Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta)
Our June DSA species of the month is the Powdered Dancer damselfly (Argia moesta) in the family Coenagrionidae, known as the Pond Damselflies. According to ode expert Dennis Paulson, it is approximately one-and-a-half inches in length (37-42 mm), and is notable for its whitish pruinosity, or “powder” (unusual among male pond damselflies). He notes the Powdered Dancer is often found along streams, rivers, and even irrigation canals, as well as larger lakes in northern parts of its range. Enjoy Utah naturalist and writer Brooke Williams's encounter with this delightful species along the Colorado River, excerpted with permission from his new book, Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-Enchantment (Uphill Books).
The relentless midsummer heat had turned to dust the red sand beneath the giant cottonwood where we often cook and drink and sometimes dance. Spring, years ago, that exact space slept under a foot of melt-swollen river. The birds must be napping, I thought, the sun too high and hot for song or flight. Not a raven in sight.
My dog Winslow caught up and we walked together to the edge of the river and sat down in the sparse shade of the willows, knowing it would grow as the sun dropped.
After sniffing along the river’s edge Winslow lay next to me. Weighed down by the heat, we waited for nothing. Like ancient hunters, all we knew was that we did not know what would happen next. Absence was a force as real as gravity.
River boulders glared painfully in the harsh sun, bleached white, quite the contrast to their eerie springtime presence just beneath the river surface.
An hour passed, colors deepened, the cliff shadow softened the boulders into giant pillows floating in the river. There, a blue damselfly perched on the peak of the nearest boulder, exposed when the glare that had hidden it turned to glow. It faced upstream, its wings vibrating in the gentle breeze. Then, through my binoculars, I counted eight damselflies perched on the peaks of eight separate boulders, as if in formation, all parallel, exact. All facing east.
Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta), Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 15 August 2020. Photo: Cindy Crosby
My mind split, watching those damselflies on those boulders. Because I struggle with damselfly identification, I noted the physical presence of the one sitting on the closest boulder. As the river disappeared into the dying light, the glowing boulders became eight glowing planets floating silently east through outer space, in formation, each piloted by a damselfly perched at its helm.
Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta) male, Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 28 July 2019. Photo: Cindy Crosby.
With her wings back parallel to her abdomen, the closest damsel was obviously of the suborder Zygoptera. Her thorax was faint powdery blue, pruinose, and her eyes light brown. She was not quite two inches long. I filed this information away, hoping that in context of the geographical place (south-eastern Utah) and season (summer) I could verify later that these were indeed powdered dancers.
With a different part of my brain, I imagined that I’d missed the exact moment the eight damselflies landed randomly on the eight boulders, then turned in one precise choreographed motion, synchronized, to face the distant cliff as it was draped by the setting sun.
We watched until darkness turned the river black and the rocks white and absorbed the damselflies into it.
Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta) male, Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 13 June 2021. Photo: Cindy Crosby.
Back home rereading my field guides, I confirmed that the damselflies‘ attributes I’d noted (pruinosity, size, eye color, flight season, and range) were those of the powdered dancer, Argia moesta. This time, I read deeper into the “natural history” of the powdered dancer and found this: “May…typically perch on river boulders facing upstream but perhaps merely into the wind.” Dennis Paulson, my dragonfly guru and author of my most dependable field guide, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West, had observed this behavior often enough to include it as typical of the powdered dancer, differentiating it from similar species. From a scientific perspective damsels facing upstream into the wind is a genetically shared trait that may have been naturally selected for improved survival possibility, rather than imply geographic isolation. That I was in that place at that time to witness this was no coincidence, but synchronicity.
Powdered Dancers (Argia moesta) male and female in tandem, Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 13 June, 2021. Photo: Cindy Crosby.
Although I’m sure it exists, I’ve found no explanation for this behavior. Why only powdered dancers? Ecologically, the powdered dancers sitting on boulders midriver may be cooling themselves with their wings streamlined back along their abdomen, so as not to be blown off balance by the wind coming downstream.
Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta) male, Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, Illinois. 5 July 2020. Photo: Cindy Crosby
Imaginal ecology offers a different possible explanation: The river is the irreversible passing of time. The damselflies perch on boulders watching the future flowing toward them, getting ready.
Brooke Williams has spent the last 40 years advocating for wilderness and writing about his own adventures exploring both the inner and outer wilds. He lives with the writer Terry Tempest Williams and two cats near Moab, Utah, where they watch the light and wait for rain. The above excerpt is from Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-Enchantment (used by permission of Uphill Books, 2025).
