Enallagma cyathigerum (Charpentier, 1840)

So...

We tipped the scales yesterday with our heaviest featured creature yet, the Goliath heron... today we're going to drop safely back to a land where everything is weighed in grams or fractions thereof. Within such a world, today's guest can be a fairly major player, but it's still of a small-and-comforting enough size that people needn't fear it.

So:

 - Eukaryota
   - Animalia
     - Eumetazoa
       - Bilateralia
         - Nephrozoa - see also Thelotornis capensis, Lygodactylus capensis, Chalcophaps indica, Sterna hirundo a, Ardea goliath and Hipposideros vittatus.
           - Protostomia
             - Ecdysozoa
               - Arthropoda - see also Ligia oceanica, Dicranopalpus ramosus, Enoplognatha ovata and Hyllus argyrotoxus
                 - Hexapoda
                   - Insecta
                     - Dicondylia
                       - Pterygota
                         - Manopterygota - see also Sybilla, Stictogryllacris punctata, Cyathosternum prehensile, Pephricus, Anoplocnemis curvipes, Hagenomyia tristis, Synagris proserpina, Melolontha melolontha, Otiorhynchus atroapterus, Demetrias atricapillus, Anthia fornasiii=nii Zebronia phenice, Laelia robusta, Anthocharis cardamines Acada biseriata
, Panorpa germanica,, Megistocera filipes, Diasemopsis meigenii, Episyrphus balteatus and Helophus pendulus
                           - Odonatoptera
                             - Holodonata
                               - Odonata
                                 - Zygoptera
                                   - Coenagrionoidea
                                     - Coenagrionidae - see also Pseudagrion hageni.
                                       - Ischnurinae

Enallagma cyathigerum

(Charpentier, 1840)

As a common European species, it has got a common name, and oh, how very imaginitive it is: 

Common Blue Damselfly 

Photographed in Bosham, West Sussex, UK, in August 2013. Male - female is typically green or brown.

 

  We'll finish with a few general public relations points on damselflies.

1. They can't sting. Among the primary functions of their long abdomens are to increase oxygen uptake to power their active lifestyle, and to aid in balance and steering during flight. The ornate tips often seen on female damselflies are ovipositors, not stings, typically designed to insert their eggs into the stems of water-plants.

2. They aren't venomous. They will give a nip if handled roughly, but they are neither disease vectors.

3. Being smaller and less powerful than their cousins the dragonflies, damselflies tend to eat slower moving insects. Like mosquitoes. So please don't swat them. 

4. Once they have wings, they will never grow or shed their skin again. So please be considerate and avoid injuring these beautiful - and useful - animals. 

That's all, folks. 

The website of the British Dragonfly society (Link HERE) includes guides to, photographs of and notes about all damselflies and dragonflies likely to be encountered in the United Kingdom - although their point for distinguishing this from a visually similar species overlooks that, in the UK at least, the blue shoulder stripe is far broader on this species than the outwardly similar Azure damsel.