Sympetrum identification

All this is from Nikula's field guide to Massachusetts dragonflies(1).

Nikula notes in the introduction that the southeast coastal plain is ecologically temperate while the interior is boreal. Thus some dragonflies are found only in one or the other. The Massachusetts coast marks the approximate northern limit of some dragonflies' range. (I think I have the northernmost record on bugguide of one species for that reason.)

Sympetrum rubicundulum: "Central to eastern U.S.; southeastern Canada. Common in coastal MA but apparently rare elsewhere. Confusion with Cherry-faced Meadowhawk (S. internum) makes delineation of range difficult."

Sympetrum internum: "Central to northern U.S.; southern to central Canada. Common throughout central and western MA, apparently rare in the southeast; however, the taxonomy of this complex is unclear, and distribution of the three forms uncertain." The note goes on to say that if S. janeae is a valid species S. internum is not found in Massachusetts.

Sympetrum obtrusum: "Central to northern U.S.; southern to central Canada. Apparently rather rare and local in interior MA, but status unclear due to confusion with other meadowhawks. Recorded historically from the southeast coastal plain, and apparently once much more common througout the state."

See also: http://www.odenews.org/county1.htm, a list of observations by county in Massachusetts.

that a link back to this forum topic be included on the Info pages of the two newly-created nodes, for the benefit of anyone who might visit those pages and not know the whole story.

I have made some attempt to do this for the gomphids:
here
and see here

...a lack of interest in the question.

The issues that Cliff raises above and here and here have not been dealt with. The Guide still has no descriptive text in the Identification section - and no treatment of issues involving ID of similar Sympetrum species in the See Also section - on the pages of Ruby, Cherry-faced, and White-faced Meadowhawk, and the genus page remains blank. Nothing has been added to these pages since 2004.

If Cliff became a BugGuide editor, I think something would get done.

There seems to be very little interest in the 'science' of entomology, maybe 0.1% of the users are curious. The remaining 99.9% seem to treat BG as a medium for showing their photos. They don't seem really that interested in getting an ID, based on the number of bugs that are ID'd and left to others to move from ID Request to the appropriate species pages. I often feel it is not worth my effort to add any information, other than an ID.
Where does the 0.1% come from? 9920 users with perhaps 10 who are interested in the science - we know who we are!
I have to keep reminding myself that there is no rule that users have to do anything more than submit photos.

comes from people's hesitation to assume that they have photographed something worthy of the guide. We have often seen such comments on images, "Feel free to move this to the guide if you think it's valuable," etc. We have actually found that people are very interested and thankful to discover what species they have found and how the expert can identify it as that species. There are many contributors, of course, who just want to know if the thing they have photographed is dangerous, which speaks a lot about the huge lack of knowledge in the general public about our insect friends. (As a science teacher, I (John) sometimes get depressed, wondering what I have done with my life when I see what is printed in the press and what passes for science knowledge in the population at large!!)

But back to the point, I would suggest experts share what they know any chance they get. You never know when the next ten or twenty or sixty year old budding entomologist will be moved by what you write.

As far as Cliff becoming an editor, we would strongly support it! We're sure all he would need to do is write John VanDyk and ask and it would happen. He would still need suggestions from the Robins and Tonys on what to do with the Sympetrum pages. We would suggest closeups of the abdomen tips of male obtusum, rubicundulum, and internum from anyone who has specimens they can photograph, adding that info to the species guide pages along with information on white faces, etc, but still creating a rubicundulum complex page where Sympetrum images that can't be assigned to a species could be placed.

Dunkle states that "male Cherry-faced and Ruby Meadowhawks essentially must be identified under a 20X microscope". I'm not sure a digital camera is going to pick up enough detail. A digital stereo microscope might be required.

How big are the features that need to be identified?

A 1:1 macro lens on a DSLR can resolve objects on the order of 10 microns. The image on the typical computer screen is more than 20 times life size.

Problem is, to shoot close to that size I need the end of the lens about 25cm away from the critter and I don't find dragonflies to be very friendly. Plus I wouldn't know what to aim at. End of abdomen?

You'd probably need to have them in your hand to get the angle. Males need the appendages on the 2nd segment (see this image and discussion). And even then it's questionable.

Females would need the underside of the 8th and 9th segments, see Tony's picture above. Dunkle describes some differences, although I haven't actually seen images of them to fully understand what they are.

Copying a comment from this photo

Damselflies and Dragonflies (Odonata) of Ontario: Resource Guide and Annotated List by P.M. Catling and V.R. Brownell (2000). (2/3 of the way down the page, 90 meg pdf)

It's on page 71 and I don't see much difference between any of them. I'd stick with the hamules and vulvar laminae. This might be the only group where the females look easier.

With no disrespect to the Robins and Tonys, I am certain Cliff is capable of handling the Sympetrum and all the other Odonates by himself.
Specific problem in this case is that identification is best made from the hamuli of the males and the vulvar laminar of the females. Problem is that the 99.9% of the users would never know where to find these parts, and even if they did there is no way they could be used to identify a Sympetrum from a field photograph of a specimen. One woud have to photograph the beast in the field, catch it and examine the hamulus or ventral lamina with a hand lens. I guess my point is that if a specimen cannot be identified from a 'regular' field photograph then it's a waste ot time for an 'expert' to produce identification pages based on characters that are not immediately obvious.
Cliff, you would make a great editor. Minimal computer code required, just a few HTML codes such as url, i, b, etc that are explained somewhere in BG. However, once you are an editor you can get to look at how other editors do things and just copy the codes they use.

When I first posted this thread, my intention was simply to make it very clear to the average user that, basically, his or her rubicundulum complex photo was probably not identifiable. I never imagined actually having all the necessary hamule and lamina photos on the site for people to make identifications in hand. I would assume that in most cases, someone with the gumption to net a Sympetrum and put a microscope up to its you-know-what probably has a dragonfly book with the necessary illustrations anyway. Also, as great as field guides and textbooks and websites are, there is no substitute for actual field experience with an expert, especially for things like Sympetrum identification. That said, however, it could not hurt to have those photos on the site. At the very least, users would have an idea what we were talking about when we mentioned "hamules" and "laminae." Whether or not it is a waste of time to go out collecting difficult images for a website is up to the individual, of course, but if we did manage to collect a full series of Sympetrum genitalia photos approaching the quality of your Aeshna and Gomphus series, I think it would be a real feather in our cap.

I would love to be an editor and try to tackle the Sympetrum problem, but before I make a formal request, I want to ask you and the other editors how much specific knowledge of computer code and all that stuff I would need to change guide pages.

You don't need to know computer code at all. You just click Edit and type. Things like adding or moving guide pages are a little more complicated, but not that much.

As for working with the images- basically you'll be able to do the same things with other people's pages that you were able to do with your own

that editors don't need to know any computer code, knowing how to hide URLs in links could prevent situations like this where one long URL forces people to scroll back and forth to read the page.

Of course, a subsequent editor could fix the problem on an Info page, but I'd prefer having no problem to fix.