Dragonflies again.
May. 24th, 2019 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI skipped out of work half an hour early to play dragonfly a bit. How'd that go?
The last time I played dragonflies for realsies and seriously, it was 2004 and I did not have the Paulson field guide which comprehensively discusses Dragonflies and Damselflies Of The East. (The Paulson guide was published in 2011, is why I didn't have it in 2004.)
So back then, the best I could do was some kind of clubtail and all the frustrating clubtails look pretty much alike and I sucked at telling them apart because I had numerous excellent pictures of the frustrating bugs and I still couldn't tell which was which in the field guide that I had back then. With Paulson, we do not have such difficulties. Paulson has careful detailed drawings of the sex parts of dragonflies so that you can tell VERY SIMILARLY COLORED ONES APART. Now that is totally helpful stuff even if, on the way to identifying your dragonfly of interest, you wind up crouched in squishy mud while trying to get your pocket camera to focus on infinitesimal dragonfly naughty bits. At least there's a positive ID at the end of your journey now, and that's not nothing.
I recently identified a Lancet Clubtail here. Lancet Clubtails are pretty small, about a 3/4 size clubtail, as clubtails go. (This is a helpful detail about Lancet Clubtails that the Paulson book includes that my other field guide neglected to mention so obviously. It was fifteen years ago and I have forgiven the field guides from back then for being lacking. Not really, but let's pretend I have.) Anyway, when I caught the Lancet Clubtail, I had to turn her over and take pix of her subgenital plate for comparison to the field guide line drawings because a lot of the clubtails are very similar-looking and difficult to tell apart in the field unless you peer at their junk.
But that did not entirely squash the clubtail controversy for me. I still felt like the lake had more than just one clubtail species. I felt this based on (a) the OC.org checklist for the county, which had Phanogomphus exilis (Lancet Clubtail) and Phanogomphus lividus (Ashy Clubtail) and also Stenogomphurus rogersi (Sable Clubtail) and on (b) the PA Natural Heritage Project for the county, which listed Spine-crowned clubtail Gomphus abbreviatus, Mustached clubtail Gomphus adelphus, Harpoon clubtail Gomphus descriptus, Lancet clubtail Gomphus exilis, and Ashy clubtail Gomphus lividus. So I felt like only Lancet Clubtail was a bit limiting.
Ya'll know where this is going, right? Okay. So I went out today and was hunting for some dragonfly excitement, of which there was a fair amount, it being a clear and warm and sunny and not overly windy day in the first half of summer. I saw a lot of stuff, still couldn't catch a frustrating common green darner (but saw three males and a female), first L. pulchella of the season (not netted but photographed), pair of chalk-fronted corporals in tandem & ovipositing, what I really really think was a spangled skimmer but I didn't get a pic of him, and what looked an awful lot like a prince baskettail, also no pic. And, yes, some clubtails, which I netted.
L. pulchella, Twelve-spotted Skimmer, one of our showier skimmers and a pretty large, fairly approachable dragonfly... I didn't net him because there is no question of ID and he's photographable without being netted and held in-hand.
Chalk-fronted Corporal, illustrating Chalk-fronted ness (this is a male, in mature coloring)
First we have a Lancet Clubtail, male version.
Then we have an unknown clubtail, so excite!
and other view:
(This is a different dragonfly than the one in the Lancet Clubtail picture, I promise.)
Parts we need, since this is a male dragonfly, are Side and From Above views of the last segment of tail, more or less.
I do not have the best pictures of this ever, but it's a three day weekend and I am totally going to try again tomorrow. Also, the pics I have are sufficient, but not stellar. I can do better.
Anyway, what we're looking at here is, I believe, a Dusky Clubtail, Phanogomphus spicatus. Because I am 100% sure you did not skim over the lists of likely suspects on the clubtail front, above, you are now going Wait, what?! because this particular clubtail is not even on the likely suspects list.
Yeah, me too. If I have ID'd this one correctly, that makes seven I've added to my county list that were not on the list prior to me. (My county is uninhabited by people and also there is absolutely no money in dragonflies. So it's not like a lot of people are out there LOOKING for dragonflies around these parts. It's just me.)
The last time I played dragonflies for realsies and seriously, it was 2004 and I did not have the Paulson field guide which comprehensively discusses Dragonflies and Damselflies Of The East. (The Paulson guide was published in 2011, is why I didn't have it in 2004.)
So back then, the best I could do was some kind of clubtail and all the frustrating clubtails look pretty much alike and I sucked at telling them apart because I had numerous excellent pictures of the frustrating bugs and I still couldn't tell which was which in the field guide that I had back then. With Paulson, we do not have such difficulties. Paulson has careful detailed drawings of the sex parts of dragonflies so that you can tell VERY SIMILARLY COLORED ONES APART. Now that is totally helpful stuff even if, on the way to identifying your dragonfly of interest, you wind up crouched in squishy mud while trying to get your pocket camera to focus on infinitesimal dragonfly naughty bits. At least there's a positive ID at the end of your journey now, and that's not nothing.
I recently identified a Lancet Clubtail here. Lancet Clubtails are pretty small, about a 3/4 size clubtail, as clubtails go. (This is a helpful detail about Lancet Clubtails that the Paulson book includes that my other field guide neglected to mention so obviously. It was fifteen years ago and I have forgiven the field guides from back then for being lacking. Not really, but let's pretend I have.) Anyway, when I caught the Lancet Clubtail, I had to turn her over and take pix of her subgenital plate for comparison to the field guide line drawings because a lot of the clubtails are very similar-looking and difficult to tell apart in the field unless you peer at their junk.
But that did not entirely squash the clubtail controversy for me. I still felt like the lake had more than just one clubtail species. I felt this based on (a) the OC.org checklist for the county, which had Phanogomphus exilis (Lancet Clubtail) and Phanogomphus lividus (Ashy Clubtail) and also Stenogomphurus rogersi (Sable Clubtail) and on (b) the PA Natural Heritage Project for the county, which listed Spine-crowned clubtail Gomphus abbreviatus, Mustached clubtail Gomphus adelphus, Harpoon clubtail Gomphus descriptus, Lancet clubtail Gomphus exilis, and Ashy clubtail Gomphus lividus. So I felt like only Lancet Clubtail was a bit limiting.
Ya'll know where this is going, right? Okay. So I went out today and was hunting for some dragonfly excitement, of which there was a fair amount, it being a clear and warm and sunny and not overly windy day in the first half of summer. I saw a lot of stuff, still couldn't catch a frustrating common green darner (but saw three males and a female), first L. pulchella of the season (not netted but photographed), pair of chalk-fronted corporals in tandem & ovipositing, what I really really think was a spangled skimmer but I didn't get a pic of him, and what looked an awful lot like a prince baskettail, also no pic. And, yes, some clubtails, which I netted.
L. pulchella, Twelve-spotted Skimmer, one of our showier skimmers and a pretty large, fairly approachable dragonfly... I didn't net him because there is no question of ID and he's photographable without being netted and held in-hand.
Chalk-fronted Corporal, illustrating Chalk-fronted ness (this is a male, in mature coloring)
First we have a Lancet Clubtail, male version.
Then we have an unknown clubtail, so excite!
and other view:
(This is a different dragonfly than the one in the Lancet Clubtail picture, I promise.)
Parts we need, since this is a male dragonfly, are Side and From Above views of the last segment of tail, more or less.
I do not have the best pictures of this ever, but it's a three day weekend and I am totally going to try again tomorrow. Also, the pics I have are sufficient, but not stellar. I can do better.
Anyway, what we're looking at here is, I believe, a Dusky Clubtail, Phanogomphus spicatus. Because I am 100% sure you did not skim over the lists of likely suspects on the clubtail front, above, you are now going Wait, what?! because this particular clubtail is not even on the likely suspects list.
Yeah, me too. If I have ID'd this one correctly, that makes seven I've added to my county list that were not on the list prior to me. (My county is uninhabited by people and also there is absolutely no money in dragonflies. So it's not like a lot of people are out there LOOKING for dragonflies around these parts. It's just me.)
