Thursday, August 18, 2005

Dragonflies

A green dragonfly seemed fascinated by a scrap of paper on the deck:


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:

  1. Anonymous7:18 AM

    Wow. That GiffBeaton site rocks. And so do those photos, by the way. Nice job!

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  2. Anonymous9:00 AM

    Great pics. You must have had some good fly paper there..ha ha.

    p.s. they're really called snake doctors.

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  3. 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. :)

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  4. Anonymous11:44 AM

    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

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  5. 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.

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  6. 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!

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  7. 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.

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  8. Anonymous7:42 PM

    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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  9. Anonymous7:03 PM

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