Back in the summer of 2008, while I was out photographing random bits of nature at the
Carpenter Nature Center, I came across a mysterious dragonfly, at least it was a mystery to me.
I knew right away that it was a dragonfly, instead of a damselfly, due to its large size and the fact that the hind wing and
forewing were not the same shape, like those of a damselfly. I could also tell that it was in the
clubtail family, despite the fact that the last couple segments of the abdomen are not much larger then the sections before them, because the eyes where
separated, and
clubtails are the only dragons who's eyes are
separated.
However this was like no
clubtail that I had ever seen before and when I tried to identify it using the Dragonflies of the North Woods book I could not find anything that matched. There was only one thing left for me to do and that was to send pictures into
bugguide.net and see if anyone online could help.
I found out that it is a russet-tipped
clubtail. The reason why I could not find it in Dragonflies of the North Woods is because this dragonfly has only been reported in one county in Minnesota, and that is Houston County in the south east corner of the state, according to the
Odonta Central website where they keep records and checklists. Carpenter is part of Washington County so that would make this a new county record however I have been told, while attending dragonfly seminars with the
Minnesota Odonata Survey Project, that for a new county or state records you have to submit a sample and I do not feel that it is necessary to kill a helpful dragonfly when I can take many pictures like you see in this post.
Back in the summer of 2008, while I was out photographing random bits of nature at the Carpenter Nature Center, I came across a mysterious dragonfly, at least it was a mystery to me.
I knew right away that it was a dragonfly, instead of a damselfly, due to its large size and the fact that the hind wing and forewing were not the same shape, like those of a damselfly. I could also tell that it was in the clubtail family, despite the fact that the last couple segments of the abdomen are not much larger then the sections before them, because the eyes where separated, and clubtails are the only dragons who's eyes are separated.
However this was like no clubtail that I had ever seen before and when I tried to identify it using the Dragonflies of the North Woods book I could not find anything that matched. There was only one thing left for me to do and that was to send pictures into bugguide.net and see if anyone online could help.
I found out that it is a russet-tipped clubtail. The reason why I could not find it in Dragonflies of the North Woods is because this dragonfly has only been reported in one county in Minnesota, and that is Houston County in the south east corner of the state, according to the Odonta Central website where they keep records and checklists. Carpenter is part of Washington County so that would make this a new county record however I have been told, while attending dragonfly seminars with the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project, that for a new county or state records you have to submit a sample and I do not feel that it is necessary to kill a helpful dragonfly when I can take many pictures like you see in this post.
7 comments:
I like your dragon fly. I thought the damsel fly only had two wings and the dragon fly has four. I might be wrong on this but that is what I always looked for to tell the difference.
How short-sighted of them to require a sample!! I thought we'd got past the 'collecting' phase of naturalist studies.
Well done for finding and identifying him though! I'd have thought your photo would have done for an ID.
That last shot is interesting. Almost looks like the dragonfly has a face complete with eyes, nose and mouth.
Nice images and a great species record - well done! As to the number of wings, both dragonflies and damselflies have four wings, the difference is in wing position. Dragonflies hold their wings out flat when sitting, damselflies hold them along the line of their abdomen.
Crisp, cool closeups! I"m glad you don't kill them.
your macro shots are simply MARVELOUS.I LOVE IT, REALLY
CONGRATS
HAVE A NICE WEEK
graceolsson.se/mittliv
Nice find. Considering how understudied Minnesota's odonates are, it seems like a shame not to have the information collected somewhere, even though from entomologists' point of view it's not as good as having a specimen to examine. You could upload it to the Odonata Central website -- they will accept photos without a voucher specimen as long as they can be clearly identified.
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