Photo credit:By USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville,USAl via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC-BY-2.0
Erythrodiplax berenice
Mecistogaster ornata larvae use a different strategy to gain
the necessary quantity of dissolved oxygen
in tree hollow tanks –
some of them live in
symbiosis with algae
growing on the dorsal
surface of their body,
including caudal lamellae. They face towards
the sunlight, enabling
the photosynthesis of
the algae (de la Rosa
& Ramirez-Ulate 1995,
Corbet 1999).
Despite the most often
occupied phytotelmata by Odonata being
Bromeliaceae tanks as
well as leaf axils of
other plants and tree
cavities, there are also
species found in even
smaller water bodies,
like Hadrothemis camarensis, which is able
to develop in bamboo
stamps (Corbet 1962).
Obviously, many of
these untypical micro46
habitats
are
facultative,
occupied
in case of
lack of the
more suitable sites
(Corbet
1 9 6 2 ,
S i l s b y
2001).
There
are
also
several
dragonflies, which oviposit and develop solely
in ‘extreme’ habitats.
The larvae of the only
true marine species,
Erythrodiplax berenice,
is unable to develop
in freshwater (Wright
1943, Smith & Smith
1996), however in laboratory studies they
have managed to live
in the tap water for one
month (Smith & Smith
1996). The natural
habitats of this dragonfly are rocky mangrove