The Small Red Damselfly, Ceriagrion tenellum, is a small damselfly

Damselfly

Damselflies are insects in the order Odonata. Damselflies are similar to dragonflies, but the adults can be distinguished by the fact that the wings of most damselflies are held along, and parallel to, the body when at rest...

 flying in heathland bog

Bog

A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

s and stream

Stream

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...

s. It is in the family Coenagrionidae

Coenagrionidae

The insect family Coenagrionidae is found in the order Odonata and the suborder Zygoptera. The Zygoptera are the damselflies, which although less known than the dragonflies, are no less common. There are more than 1100 species in this family, making it the largest damselfly family...

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Identification

C. tenellum is only 25 – long. It is a lot shorter than the Large Red Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

The Large Red Damselfly Pyrrhosoma nymphula is a European damselfly. It is one of the first damselflies to emerge in the year.-Identification:Females occur in many colour forms, but all have yellow bands around the abdominal segments....

, with which it is sometimes confused. In both sexes the thorax

Thorax

The thorax is a division of an animal's body that lies between the head and the abdomen.-In tetrapods:...

 is bronze-black on top.

The male has an entirely red abdomen

Abdomen

In vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...

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The female has a bronze-black abdomen with only the front and back of it red. The dark form melanogastrum has an almost entirely dark abdomen marked with pale segment divisors, the last two of which are reddish. A very rare form, erythrogastrum, resembles the male.

Behaviour

Adults fly low and weakly, rarely going far from breeding waters. Like the Southern Damselfly, which this species sometimes accompanies, they rarely fly in any but the warmest and calmest weather conditions. They can, however, be surprisingly inconspicuous, even the males.

The males are aggressive towards each other but are not territorial

Territory (animal)

In ethology the term territory refers to any sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics...

. Oviposition

Oviposition

Oviposition is the process of laying eggs by oviparous animals.Some arthropods, for example, lay their eggs with an organ called the ovipositor.Fish , amphibians, reptiles, birds and monetremata also lay eggs....

takes place in tandem.

Eggs and larvae

It lays elongated eggs in submerged and emergent plants which subsequently hatch after about a month. The larvae are very small, about 16 –, and are found in acidic bogs, streams and ponds. They live among debris in bogs and develop after two years.