Is There An Aquatic Entomologist in The House?

[BigDon]

Oh. Hi ABR.

About October a group of friends of mine went camping in Penoche Valley in Central California. A trip I had to pass on and regret doing so now.

My brother and friends keep trying to relate to me this insect they keep insisting looked like very large dragonflys but were active at night. As far as I know there are no nocturnal dragonflys. Shoot, they don't even like cloudy days.

But at least four people say they saw this pair of impressive sized "dragonflys" approximately 6 to 8 inchs long dominating the airspace under an electric light at a gas station, gorging themselves. Pale green. The area is fairly arid as well, but doesn't rule out a livestock pond or something of that nature.

I'm clueless, do you have any idea?

[PetersCreek]

I'm no aquatic entomologist but I am a flyfisherman.

My first thought was that the size is exaggerated...easy to do at night, under a light, against a dark backdrop. I also thought they might be misidentifying something like a cicada but they feed on plants and I'm not sure they swarm lights at night.

I Googled "odonata nocturnal" and found this paper (http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en507/papers_1999/lambert.htm) which gives a passing reference, "A few species of Odonata that feed on mayflies, only forage at dawn or dusk (Merrit and Cummins 1996)" but no particular species are identified.

That's about as helpful as I can be right now.

[Ronald Brak]

I don't know what they were, but I found out a week or two ago that bees, or at least Ligurian bees, can be active at night during a full moon. That surprised me. It sounds like they had a good thing going there and plenty of light to see by as well.

[ABR.]

Hey...I'm an aquatic entomologist! Wow, this reminds me of the time I stopped in the small town of Hardy, Arkansas because the sheriff had stopped in front of me and there were 20-30 people gathered around a house. The sheriff pulled aside and then apologized to me, saying that someone had just killed a snake. I was able to drop the line, "I'm a biologist -- may I be of assistance?" Yeah, not as good as "Back off...I'm a scientist!" But you take what you can get.

Okay, on to the matter at hand. October. California. I'm also thinking no on odonates, but stranger things have happened. I'm assuming they saw these insects flying and not landing? If they were near a stream, I'd be tempted to say hellgrammite adult. The Dysmicohermes get quite big here in CA. There are some other genera here that don't get that big. There are some large stoneflies out here that might fly up to lights, but they certainly wouldn't be preying on other insects. Both the hellgrammites and stoneflies are going to have fluttery flight patterns -- not the precision flying like dragons.

The pale green coloration, though. October...how about some big preying mantises? I got quite a few coming to my mercury vapor back in October. They look quite different in flight from an odonate, but they certainly fit on otherwise. They usually land on the sheet I hang on the back porch and then stalk around for prey. Not sure if they will snag insects out of the air.

I probably have some references on nocturnal odonate flights, but yeah, aside from crepuscular times, generally you don't find them flying at night. The biggest green dragons I can think of are the green darners like Anax junius. They would certainly put a dent into small flying insects. I suppose if the lights were bright enough and the air temps were fairly high, dragons might get fooled into thinking it was daytime.

I think we need to get some pictures of some of these critter in flight to show your brother and friends to be certain. I'll try to find some later when I get the kids to bed. Right now, my money is on preying mantis.

Oh, by the way. The Arkansas incident? It was just a poor little black racer that had been killed. I scolded everyone there and tried to help them tell the difference between the local poisonous vs. non-poisonous snakes. People were actually listening to me! I had to extricate myself so that I wouldn't be late for dinner! Fun times.

[ABR.]

PetersCreek: I think most of the cicadas out here are pretty small and generally dark in coloration. I'll have to check. I have a couple nice shots of one emerging from its nymphal skin in the Insects album on my User Profile.

Ronald Brak: interesting. The full moon usually plays havoc with the aquatics I'm after. My pathetic little black lights have too much light competition, I suppose.

[Ronald Brak]

Going by your avatar I can see why you would be keenly interested in entomology, ABR.

[BigDon]

Because Nobody Told Him It Was Impossible...

Well if you have kids AB you might be able to relate to this.

Earlier this fall I was hiking with my brother, a friend and my friend's 5 year old son Lex who has taking up entomology with all the obsession a five year could muster. Even went to a summer class program on it geared for children and he related to me the life cycle of the ladybug. Including migration schedules. From memory.

Had a whole junior capture kit with the magnifier wall for bugs. I'd be walking with him and he'd say "Look! An ant!" And when I looked down at our feet to find the ant, Lex would run thirty feet ahead and pick up some poor formicid I couldn't even see and place it in his bug carrier. (His dad or I would encourage him to release them periodically, to instill good small animal habits. Telling him they needed to get a drink of water or they really missed their friends, etc, etc.)

We were at Rock Ridge Park west of Sacramento, near Lake Berryessa and my brother and I were showing them a large wet land restoration pond that we had discovered a mind boggling emergence of baby toads a week earlier.

It was still going on and Lex, of course, was beside himself chasing all the easy to catch baby toads. (Dad made him put them back an hour later. Lex acted like he was surrendering digits.)

Well, on the walk back to the car his Dad and my brother got ahead talking server crapola and Lex and I were scoping out the life at a second smaller pond when Lex asked me if it was okay if he caught some dragonflys.

As he had no net and I saw no reason not to be supportive, I said "Sure! Good luck and catch a bunch!" and I turned to see if I could find any nymphs of any sort and about four minutes later I heart this voice behind me say, "How long do you think they'll live?"

And I turned and he had three dragonflys in the bug carrier! You could have knocked me over with a feather! I didn't want to put him off his stride by saying something like, "How in the world did you do that!" like it was oh, comparable to making balls from water. (Clumsy Carp, where are you?) I said, "Oh, catch another one." In a very calm voice and Lex just walked up behind one and plucked it out of the air like low hanging fruit!

These weren't mayflys or damsels! I know you were thinking that!

I encouraged him to do it two more times for his dad and my brother. Didn't even break their wings, (after I told him not two). Kid's move was smooth as silk. Beautiful to behold.

So, how useful a skill is that?

Maybe his father will rent him out! I'll ask.

[ABR.]

I can totally relate to that! You should attempt to get him catching dragons on video -- it must be a sight to behold.

I haven't been to Rocky Ridge Park, but I have spent time near Lake Berryessa, including several trips this past year. There is a very interesting stonefly that can be found in one of the tribs to Putah Creek.

So. Is Lex short for Alex?

[BigDon]

Alexander, but his father calls him Lex. So I do too. His Mom only uses the full name from trouble, as per usual for mothers.

I spent a lot of time hunting and shooting near Puta Creek in my youth. Near Gamble land? DeMarchi? (Familys who own land there, everyone else) Maybe I get get you access to private property. If they aren't still mad at me for what happened at their mother's funeral. Hmmm, I'll get my brother to ask.

[Ivan Viehoff]

I think you might solve your paradox if you have a look through the Neuroptera (lacewings). You'll find a few decent-sized dragonfly-like insects which are aerial predators, either crepuscular or nocturnal.

I think owlfly (ascalaphidae) is your best bet to find some candidates. But possibly antlion or mantidfly. Antlion adults are normally vegetarian, but some are predatory. Mantidflies are normally predatory, but probably not aerial.

[Ronald Brak]

I want to post, but I am too scared of the mirror universe Kermit.

[ABR.]

Sorry about that, Ronald Brak. I'm trying to make a truther out of someone on the Untrue Fact thread.


I think you might solve your paradox if you have a look through the Neuroptera (lacewings). You'll find a few decent-sized dragonfly-like insects which are aerial predators, either crepuscular or nocturnal.

I think owlfly (ascalaphidae) is your best bet to find some candidates. But possibly antlion or mantidfly. Antlion adults are normally vegetarian, but some are predatory. Mantidflies are normally predatory, but probably not aerial.

I thought about these after I logged off last night. I didn't think of them immediately because of the coloration, mainly, but also the size. Most of the owlflies and antlions we have out here wouldn't quite make it to the size range that BigDon mentioned. The mantid flies are considerably smaller and I think you're right in that they aren't really aerial predators. There is a giant green lacewing that can be found in the western USA, but it won't exhibit the behavior that BigDon mentioned.

[Fazor]

Catching dragonflies barehanded? Wow. I had a pond growing up, so they were always around. Couldn't get within a few feet of 'em (except when you were swimming, you could sit still and they'd try to land on you, until you so much as twitched).

I was thinking there were moths that actually had wings more similar to dragon flies, and were somewhat larger than the average moth, but I'd think they're bodies would be... "fatter" ...and not mistaken for dragonfly-like.

The most interesting thing I found in "recent history" was the body of a hummingbird moth (http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/hummingbird_moth.htm). Who needs aliens when your planet is filled with things like that? Edit: Which also has wings sorta like a dragonfly

[Torsten]

When my son was about 10 months old we bought a new barbeque, and I was assembling it on the deck with him crawling around and generally being a nuisance. There were dragonflies flitting about. Unusual silence made me turn around to look at him, concerned that he had picked up some small part. What I saw was a wing sticking out of one side of his mouth and the tail out the other. And then it was gone. Yummy! Wished I seen how he managed that.

ETA: Just remembered: The same child managed to squash a wasp against his temple without being stung.

[mugaliens]

Yeah, not as good as "Back off...I'm a scientist!" But you take what you can get.

That's better than claiming you're a herpetologist and getting arrested for announcing you have an STD in a public place...

[Jeff Root]

Any chance that, rather than one large insect, what was seen was two
insects hitched together in midair refueling?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[ABR.]

That's better than claiming you're a herpetologist and getting arrested for announcing you have an STD in a public place...

Speaking of being a herpetologist and getting arrested...there was this one night back in Arkansas when I was cuffed, frisked and read my rights and then had to explain to the local constable that if he just rewound the tape a bit on the recorder, he could hear the frog calls I'd been recording and that the plants in the plastic baggies weren't marijuana but instead were just some poison hemlock I'd been collecting for my botanist father, who was working on a poisonous plant survey. Then again, maybe I've said too much now.

[mugaliens]

Was the next question about who you liked the least in the family?

[sabianq]

like this?

http://img6.travelblog.org/Photos/26036/272484/t/2276898-Nocturnal-Dragonfly-1.jpg

or

http://mariewin.server304.com/marieblog/uploaded_images/Brad%20Klein-742065.jpg

[ABR.]

like this?

http://img6.travelblog.org/Photos/26036/272484/t/2276898-Nocturnal-Dragonfly-1.jpg

That's a beautiful ascalaphid -- do you know where it is from?

[sabianq]

http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Laikipia/blog-272484.html

Africa » Kenya » Rift Valley Province » Laikipia

check it out.

[ABR.]

Beautiful! To my knowledge, we don't have any quite that size here in California. Most of the ones I catch are pretty plain and would most likely be confused with damselflies rather than dragons.

[BigDon]

That's a beautiful ascalaphid -- do you know where it is from?

Huh? It looked like a dragonfly to me...





:)