A slightly more aerial view of him:
I was creeping closer and closer, when a cat decided she needed to see what was going on, and kind of ruined the moment.
I think this is a Clubtail dragonfly (Gomphidae), but there are several greenish ones that look almost exactly alike to me.
This one was easier:
Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa). We see these all the time.
In looking up the dragonflies, I found a nice web site with lots of good nature pictures. The emphasis is on Georgia wildlife.
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9 comments:
Wow. That GiffBeaton site rocks. And so do those photos, by the way. Nice job!
Great pics. You must have had some good fly paper there..ha ha.
p.s. they're really called snake doctors.
Did anyone else grow up calling dragonflies "mosquito hawks"? Nice shots...I noticed the C-A-T messed up the photo op...not the dog. Typical. :)
Hi,
That looks to me like one of the Spinylegs -- down here i would have called it a Flag-tailed Spinyleg (it's not a Black-shouldered -- our only other species). I guess it depends on what's available up your way.
tony g
I don't usually disagree with Tony, but I'm pretty sure this is a Black-shouldered Spinyleg, and definately not Flag-tailed. And I agree, Giff's site is superb.
Anybody else hear the BugGuide.net is shutting down? We need to find a savior.
Heh. Now you see why I didn't try to go further on the greenish dragonfly ID!
I need to get a book on them I suppose but I haven't seen one... if there is a nice Peterson-style guide let me know. I prefer drawings to photos. And love those little arrows.
Snake doctors, yeah, don't know that I've heard "mosquito hawks" before though. I had a friend whose family called them galinippers.
FC Jasmine would've been all over that in a heartbeat, but we have that deck blocked off so she can't get up on it. I was sitting on the floor inside, so my lens wouldn't get all steamy. The door was open and the cat sensed an opportunity to escape!
I hadn't been to BugGuide lately but I'd hate to see it shut down. Looks like they might have found a new home for it though!
Another online site for dragonflies is MD dragonflies (http://www.toadmail.com/~damselfly/). It has some recommendations for field guides as well as original photographs. Unfortunately Peterson doesn't have a dragonfly guide yet. I wish they did because photos just don't do it for me.
Well, after more study, i'm going to have to agree with Nannothemis. Ours are darker, but yours doesn't seem to fit anything else.
There are a couple of excellent, wide-ranging field guides out:
Sid Dunkle's Dragonflies through Binoculars which treats the entire US
and John Abbott's Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and the South-Central US which treats about five states i think.
Here's links to the books:
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7940.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195112687/ref=pd_sim_b_2/103-6345293-3235853?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
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