Steve over at whatdoino grabbed a great photo
of the ladybugs I mentioned earlier
Along with the ladybug, he posted a photo of what most of us would call a dragonfly or maybe a darningneedle or damselfly.
It is a bluet, but not the flower.
I found this out because in July 2005 I photographed a midnight visitor in Bethel.
This stunner looks like it is made of turquoise and jet by a Pueblo artist.
Of course, I had to find out what kind of dragonfly it was or whether it was a darningneedle (and was there a difference between darning needles, damselflies, and dragonflies?). Turns out to be a bluet. I think it is a taiga bluet.
I had no idea that Alaska had that many related insects. Nor that our state insect isn’t the mosquito but the 4-spotted skimmer, a dragonfly.
- Dragonflies of Alaska by John Hudson and Robert H. Armstrong is the local reference, Todd Communications, 203 W. 15th Ave. Suite 102, Anchorage, AK 99510, for $12.95. ISBN:1-57833-302-4 available at TitleWave
- Digital Dragonflies with photos by family. This site is related to the book, A Dazzle of Dragonflies which one really needs in a natural history library. They also explain how to get those dazzling photos (flatbed scanner).
by Forrest L. Mitchell and James L. Lasswell
# Hardcover: 224 pages
# Publisher: Texas A&M University Press (April 30, 2005)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1585444596
# ISBN-13: 978-1585444595
# Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
http://www.dragonflies.org/catalog.htm
Site Search Tags: bluets, bugs, insects, damselfly, dragonfly, photography, Kuskokwim, Bethel, tundra, taiga, whatdoino-steve
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My old school has an interesting question, with pictures of 150 year old damselflies–
In the history of science there can be few things as suffused with romance as the business of collecting. The mix of perilous journeys to unknown lands, a thirst for strange and new creatures and the desire to be immortalised through some chance discovery from a distant swamp or mountain-top gives the collector near-heroic status. So spare a thought then for the unknown collectors of these unusual dragon and damselfly specimens from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.