The Dragonfly Society of the Americas is an organization that was founded in 1988 by a group of Odonata (dragonfly) specialists, and has since grown into an organized group whose collective goal is to advance the "discovery, conservation, and knowledge of Odonata through observation, collection, research, publication, and education" (Mission statement). They host an annual meeting to exchange news and ideas, collect new samples, and attract new members, and this year was the 25th anniversary meeting of the organization's foundation. Myself and a good friend--April Brooks--had the privilege of attending this year, courtesy of our friend, Margy Balwierz, who contacted me about the trip through my science teacher. I'm a bug lover, so of course I signed on, and April kind of had no choice because I dragged her along.
The meeting this year was split into three parts--a pre-meeting in Fall Creek, WI, a main meeting in Ladysmith, and a post-meeting (which we did not attend) in Vilas County. The meeting was headed by a group of ten or so experts, along with twenty-ish more mid-level experts, and a handful of people (like myself) who had no clue what was going on. The meeting was a mixture of informational presentations and field outings, and even if you actively tried not to, it was pretty much impossible to walk away without learning something.
As a novice, most of the presentations that these people gave were way beyond me. Talks on Sympetrum corruptum and the distribution of gomphids rapidly progressed beyond my meager grasp of Odonata terminology, and looking back at the doodles in my notebook, I would say that I eventually gave up trying to understand what was going on. There was one, however, that I understood and picked up a few things from.
Ami Thompson gave a talk on the basics of dragonfly identification. For the experts (which as I mentioned comprised the vast majority of the people there), it was just that--the basics. For me, though, it all but blew my mind.
There were six families of dragonfly that we were expecting to see over the course of that trip: clubtails, spiketails, cruisers, darners, emeralds, and skimmers. I'm not even going to try defining the damselflies, because with juvenile and gender differences being taken into account, there was no telling what you were looking at unless you consulted one of the experts. To me, they were colorful twigs with wings.
Damselflies notwithstanding, Ami taught us some tricks that would let us differentiate between families.
Clubtail |
Clubtail |
Darner |
Spiketail |
Cruiser--thorax stripe detail |
American Emerald |
Twelve-spotted skimmer |
With this knowledge of general family placement, we headed out into the field. Dragonflies, we found, tend not to live in convenient places. They like water and plant cover, so you'll find yourself tramping through burdock, nettles, and brambles and then topping your boots in bogs and rivers in your search for these buzzing dots of greased lightning. I was stupid the first day and wore shorts, and so my legs accumulated a lovely pattern of criss-crossing scratches dotted with red mosquito bites (where there's mosquitoes, there's dragonflies, and subsequently there's Odonatists). The clubtails, cruisers, and some skimmers we mostly found on rivers and fast-moving water. The white-faced skimmers and emeralds seemed to like the bogs. Both sites made for adventurous walking, as you were either fighting for your balance against a current and slippery rocks or fighting for your balance against black, sucking mud that's trying to pull you down amongst all the other lost Odonatist skeletons that are no doubt down there.
Anyway.
Identifying--once you get the general family and are flipping through whatever guide you happen to have (I like Kurt Mead's Dragonflies of the North Woods)--goes something like this:
*flip-flip-flip*
"That looks right."
"It does. Maybe that's it."
*flip*
"Oh. So does that."
*backwards flip*
"What's the difference?"
"Better read."
*sigh*
"...'The Ashy clubtails' claspers do not have the downward-pointing tooth of the Dusky...'"
*pulls out hand lens and peers intently at dragonfly's rear-end*
"I think there's a hook."
"Let me look."
*follows suit*
"I don't think there is."
"We'd better ask Bob..."
Bob DuBois |
"In tandem" mating pair |
Having the experts point us in the right direction was nice, and gave us something to work off. In the end, though, we took a day to ourselves on the river encircling our campsite, and spent the day catching and I.D-ing on our own. We got wet, messed up more than once, and yet in the end, it beat going to a mall or playing video games any day.
If you're a bug person, or just some nerd who's willing to tramp through bogs, river, and heavy vegetation for the sake of proving you can, I would highly recommend this as a field trip. Next year's meeting will be held in Pennsylvania towards the end of June, and the group is always looking for new, younger members (it's an older-generation group--April and I were the young'uns the entire trip). You can tag along for free, or sign up for twenty bucks to be an official member of the society (with the added benefit of a catered dinner).
As always to my readers, I hope you enjoyed wasting your time with this, and happy summer!
S.R.Koch
Our delicious stew |
Top: Frosted whiteface Bottom left: Hudsonian whiteface; Bottom right: Dot-tailed whiteface; |
April and Dominick |
Left: Dusky clubtail; Right; Springtime darner |
Dot-tailed whiteface female |