I'm gonna be honest. When I caught my first Clubtail back in May I was too chicken to pick it up and photographed it through a jar. I'm proud to say I've progressed. I caught this guy (actually a female) this afternoon behind my house. I spent about an hour looking through the book to find one with pale legs, narrow black stripes (T3 and T4) on the side of the body, and the unique pattern on the front of the thorax above the head (likened in the book to a flower being dumped out of a vase).
It appears to be a Riverine Clubtail, the 4th LP specimen at least as of whenever the Michigan Odonata survery was last updated (assuming I haven't blown the ID).
I saw one other clubtail but was too slow on the draw to net it (though batting .500 is really good for me). I connected on a much lower rate with the Riverview Park Meadowhawks (and they're a pretty easy one to net). I'm still not convinced that the hamule (male genital spur at the base of the tail behind the legs) matches any picture in the book.
2 comments:
Very cool clubtail. Nice capture. This would be the 3rd record for the lower peninsula for Stylurus amnicola if it was collected. The MOS database is updated every year.
yeah, it's in acetone.
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