Dragonfly season is underway.
May. 17th, 2019 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIf you thought this was an all-horse-all-the-time blog, you thought wrong. It is getting to be dragonfly season. I spotted a dragonfly in the yard last weekend while mowing the lawn and submitted pix of same to OC. OC agrees with me that it's an E. cynosura (common baskettail) so that's one more for my official list of confirmed species in the valley.
The common baskettail is a fairly, well, common species of baskettail. It zooms around ponds and stuff, nothing especially amazing going on with 'em or anything. This one is a female.
It's fairly easy to tell male and female dragonflies apart. Sometimes they look A LOT different (Widow Skimmer males and females are colored very differently), but even when they are fairly similar in terms of overall coloration and stuff, the males and females look different enough that you can tell 'em apart. Maybe not if they wore clothes, but they do not wear clothes.
We know that this baskettail is a female because of (A) overall thicker abdomen than males of the species and (B) she lacks junk on her undercarriage.
It'shard impossible to see what I'm talking about from the shot above, what you really need is a side shot.
The actual area you need to be looking at, well, let me draw you an arrow. Maybe that will help.
Since it can be difficult to tell what you're not seeing when you've probably never seen it, let us examine a boy dragonfly so that you can see what you're not supposed to see on girl dragonflies. (You didn't realize that this post could more properly be entitled Sexing Dragonflies for Fun and Profit but it totally could have been. Also, there is no profit. Sorry about that. There's probably not a lot of fun for you either. I'm bad at pandering to the interests of the reading audience.) Here is a male common baskettail, for comparison purposes.
See the lumpy bits? Yeah. This is a boy dragonfly. Has lumpy bits. (Damselflies work the same way. Same sorts of lumpy bits, same location on the bug.) Girl dragonflies do not have lumpy bits. They are smooth there. This is basically all there is to know about sexing dragonflies and damselflies. (The lumpy bits are for transferring semen to girl dragonflies during mating. They're the male's secondary genitalia.)
You didn't see the lumpy bits? Did you look? I know they're small. Okay, fine, here is an arrow for you.
Anyway, on Saturday it is not supposed to be raining and I am going to head out into the field and take notes and observe stuff and be all Pretending To Science. (In so doing, I will be getting paid almost as much as Real Dragonfly Researchers. There is not a lot of money in dragonflies.) There may be pictures if the weather's good. It's getting to be eclosing season. Anyway, I'm doing that until noonish when I have to go fix fence with Trys and ride my horse and stuff. I'm sure you're as excited as I am. :) More of the same on Sunday if it's not pouring rain.
The common baskettail is a fairly, well, common species of baskettail. It zooms around ponds and stuff, nothing especially amazing going on with 'em or anything. This one is a female.
It's fairly easy to tell male and female dragonflies apart. Sometimes they look A LOT different (Widow Skimmer males and females are colored very differently), but even when they are fairly similar in terms of overall coloration and stuff, the males and females look different enough that you can tell 'em apart. Maybe not if they wore clothes, but they do not wear clothes.
We know that this baskettail is a female because of (A) overall thicker abdomen than males of the species and (B) she lacks junk on her undercarriage.
It's
The actual area you need to be looking at, well, let me draw you an arrow. Maybe that will help.
Since it can be difficult to tell what you're not seeing when you've probably never seen it, let us examine a boy dragonfly so that you can see what you're not supposed to see on girl dragonflies. (You didn't realize that this post could more properly be entitled Sexing Dragonflies for Fun and Profit but it totally could have been. Also, there is no profit. Sorry about that. There's probably not a lot of fun for you either. I'm bad at pandering to the interests of the reading audience.) Here is a male common baskettail, for comparison purposes.
See the lumpy bits? Yeah. This is a boy dragonfly. Has lumpy bits. (Damselflies work the same way. Same sorts of lumpy bits, same location on the bug.) Girl dragonflies do not have lumpy bits. They are smooth there. This is basically all there is to know about sexing dragonflies and damselflies. (The lumpy bits are for transferring semen to girl dragonflies during mating. They're the male's secondary genitalia.)
You didn't see the lumpy bits? Did you look? I know they're small. Okay, fine, here is an arrow for you.
Anyway, on Saturday it is not supposed to be raining and I am going to head out into the field and take notes and observe stuff and be all Pretending To Science. (In so doing, I will be getting paid almost as much as Real Dragonfly Researchers. There is not a lot of money in dragonflies.) There may be pictures if the weather's good. It's getting to be eclosing season. Anyway, I'm doing that until noonish when I have to go fix fence with Trys and ride my horse and stuff. I'm sure you're as excited as I am. :) More of the same on Sunday if it's not pouring rain.
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Date: 2019-05-17 05:24 pm (UTC)