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A Note on Synchronized Emergence in Gomphus vastus Walsh (Odonata: Gomphidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

Clifford Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro. New Mexico

Extract

An ecological classification of dragonfly species into spring and summer types was proposed by Corbet (1954). Much of the basis for the classification rests with the pattern and period of adult emergence. Since little information of this type is known for North American species, the following observations are reported.

On May 20, 1962, I spent several hours collecting Baisaeschna janata and Didymops transversa along the New River, two miles north of McCoy, Virginia. A search was made at that time for odonate exuviae. None were found. I returned to the site at 9:30 a.m. the following day. The vegetation, tree trunks, rocks and detritus along the river were clustered with exuviae, all apparently of Gomphus vastus. Several thousand individuals must have emerged from that general area of the river. As an example of the density, 230 cast skins were counted along one 20-foot stretch of the river bank. Some individuals had transformed directly on the sand banks and others at a height of seven feet.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1963

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References

Corbett, P. S. 1954. Seasonal regulation in British dragonflies. Nature, Lond., 174: 655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, B. D. 1862. List of the Pseudoneuroptera of Illinois contained in the cabinet of the writer, with descriptions of over forty new species, and notes on their structural affinities. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 361402.Google Scholar