Plains Clubtail in the Roadfield

It was a fiercely windy day--May 17, 2018. 

This little guy needed all six legs to hang on.

Ron spotted him first and then talked me to where the gorgeous insect was clinging to a dead stalk.  It took me a while to see him, as he blended in with last year's vegetation.

We marveled at his black and yellow markings and tried to get a few photos, despite the wind. 

We knew he was a dragonfly but weren't sure what kind.  

Photos would help with the ID.  We compared our photos to the ones in Dragonflies through Binoculars, and realized that we had been visited by a Plains Clubtail, Gomphus externus.     

This photo shows the club tail for which this dragonfly is named--and the "epiproct" (that middle appendage on the last abdominal segment) between the two pincer-like appendages (called "cerci").  This individual's black legs and the fact that the epiproct extends beyond the cerci identify him as male.  

Plains Clubtails range throughout the Great Plains in wetlands and flood plains, along slow-moving streams.  The adults feed on other insects and the aquatic nymphs on insects, tadpoles, and even fish.

Our little guy may have been headed for McDowell Creek!   Let's hope he reached it when the wind died down.  


(Reference:  Sidney W. Dunkle.  Dragonflies through Binoculars: A Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America.  Ed. Jeffrey Glassberg.  Oxford UP, 2000.)