On Monday the 13th after a short visit with the refuge manager and refuge
biologist I made a quick visit to the Lake St. Francis Research Natural Area on
Bitter Lake Natioanl Wildlife Refuge here in New Mexico.  I had stopped to take
a quick look at Sink No. 20 and noticed a blue haze, or smoke over the water on
Sink No. 19 from about 50 ft. away.   This turned out to be a bloom of Arroyo
Bluets (Enallagma praevarum) with many thousands over water on the small sink
hole giving it a smoke like appearance form 40 to 50 feet away. 
 
When the Pecos Pupfish (Cyprinodon pecosensis) in the sink would jump for them,
the bluets would form a dense swirling funnel shaped school above the water
sruface like a small blue tornado as a kind of aerial schooling behavior.  I
could not tell if the pupfish, sometimes jumping 2 or 3 at a time, caught any of
the damselflies.  And, when the Blue-eyed Darners would pass over the water the
bluets funnel shaped schooling would invert like an inverted tornado and move
below the darner across the water of the small saline sink as the darner
moved.  Perhaps, a form of defensive schooling behavior for this damselfly which
is well known in fish, but not Odonata
 
Robert Larsen
Roswell, New Mexico




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