Damselflies Attacking Dragonfly?

[DavyG]

While I was photographing Damselflies at the weekend a Dragonfly flew past and settled in the grass nearby.

When I managed to find it, I was astonished to see that there were two Damselflies landing on it's back and appearing to bite it.

Before I could take a pic, the Dragonfly flew off and landed 20 - 30 feet away, I followed it and found the same thing happening again, I took the following pic of the Damselfly attacking the Dragonfly:



Has anyone witnessed this behaviour?

Could the Damsels see that the Dragonfly was sick/old?

Comments and opinions welcomed.

Dave

[zail]

Not seen anything quite like that - have seen damselflies "buzzing" an Emperor and on another occasion a four spotted chaser while in the air - clearly dicing with death! As this is unusual behaviour perhaps you would like to report it to the British Dragonfly Society - theres a link on their hot new page to report unusual things... (http://www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/hotnews.asp)

Amazing pic btw

[Tursiops2]

The damselfly appears to be trying to mate with the dragonfly
Ambitions above its station?
T2

[Bruce Williams]

Interesting thread Dave - I've not witnessed anything like this.

Bruce

[harasseddad]

I've seen common blue's land on ovipositing Emperors, and territorial black-tailed skimmers and 4 spots have a go at male Emperors. I suspect that they don't have a mental template for "other species of dragonfly", just an instinct to fly at anything that looks a bit like them. Not behaviour likely to lead to a long life though.

[glsammy]

I've also seen Damselflies attacking Dragonflies, I got this shot last month:



Enough to annoy the Dragonfly, but that's all.

[DavyG]

Thank you for all your comments.

zail: I'll pass this on as you suggest.

Graham: A couple of excellent pics, did the Damselfly attempt to land on the Emperor?

Dave

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by DavyG

Thank you for all your comments.

zail: I'll pass this on as you suggest.

Graham: A couple of excellent pics, did the Damselfly attempt to land on the Emperor?

Dave

Not actually land Dave, but fly in have a quick nip and fly away. Did this all the time the Dragonfly was having a rest.
What was interesting was that the Dragonfly had no interest in any of the many Damselflies around, there were plenty ovipositing in the pond which would have been an easy quick snack. He was far more interested in keeping the other male away from the water.

[welsh.lensman]

I took this shot last May of an Azure damselfly appearing to attack a pair of mating Hairy dragonflies.



The Azure seemed to take advantage of the dragonflies mind being on other things.