South Carolina Dragonflies

8/31/2015

In my first few weeks in Columbia, I've seen numerous dragonflies but have had precious little time to photograph and start learning about them. They seem to be everywhere and are as aggressively unafraid of me as the plants in my yard, which threaten to take over the place if not trimmed every other day. Moving here in the summer from Michigan has provided me with a quick lesson in the difference between temperate and sub-tropical biota.

I've sill got a backlog of photographs and corrections to identifications that I haven't added to my first dragonfly page that I started in Michigan. I've seen few dragonflies here that I've recognized off the top of my head, so I though I'd start a new page for South Carolina. I'm not a dragonfly expert but find them fascinating in terms of their behavior (and evolution), and they're great subjects for photography. As with the previous page, please let me know if you see anything that I've misidentified.

I think this is a male blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis). Columbia, SC, August 2015.

I think this is a female blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis). It was in our backyard for several days, often perching in the same spot. Columbia, SC, August 2015.

I think this is a female eastern pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis). Columbia, SC, August 2015.

Male common whitetail (Plathemis lydia), Columbia, SC, August 2015.

Male blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), Columbia, SC, August 2015.

Male blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), Columbia, SC, September 2015.

Greg Little

8/29/2015 02:35:37 am

FINALLY, something I can comment on... Great photos. Yep, dragonflies are everywhere in the South, thankfully. You can do away with the yard work easily by not watering anything. Probably not a good option. And I suspect you have already been subjected to SEC fervor. Football is king down here.

Andy White

8/29/2015 03:38:38 am

The most aggressive plant in the yard is the somewhat-ironically-named Confederate jasmine, which I believe has, as its ultimate plan, the takeover of the known universe.

Andy White

8/29/2015 03:40:55 am

And, Greg, I can't believe you had nothing to contribute to a discussion of the expressed hope of one of my readers that the Raven God would punish me.

Greg Little

8/29/2015 04:17:07 am

I had no words for that. The raven has been set on me too. I am sometimes on the side of reason. (But it's a bit more fun on the other side.) I did see a great link on your Eastern Woodlands project site to a spot in Virginia Beach. We go to that precise area often, there is a marina near it as well as a couple great restaurants. It's all built up now, houses and so on. The article was very interesting. I talked to a couple people who lived there back in the 1940s and they told stories of going in that area looking for Indian artifacts and treasure. They never found anything. What you don't want to plant is kudzu. That stuff does take over and it is practically impossible to get rid of. You can actually see it grow and even hear it grow in the summer if you watch it closely.

Greg Little

8/29/2015 04:28:57 am

Oh yes, in a couple days I have a brief piece coming out on supposed Neanderthal skeletons and Neanderthaloid skulls recovered from mounds. They were all supposedly 6-feet in height. It's not a long article, and might give you something to debunk. I didn't put the illustrations/photos of the skulls in it but if you want to see them let me know.

Andy White

8/29/2015 04:33:58 am

I will look forward to seeing that. Mounds in eastern North America? As you might guess, I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that an honest-to-goodness Neanderthal skeleton was buried in an American mound, but I'll be interested to see the argument. And I would love to see the pictures. Where's it coming out?

Greg Little

8/29/2015 04:55:13 am

I'll send you the link, probably Monday night--it'll be out the 1st. From Iowa. The guy who did the excavations didn't make any arguments at all, just related that was what they were. My response is, "hmm. Just interesting." I doubt that they were Neanderthal, just thought the find and description of it was interesting. He gives all the cranial measurements so maybe that'll help. He worked for the Smithsonian some, had an MSc, and was a professional mining engineer, well-know then. I stumbled across it as I was doing my own mound survey project. I simply hadn't run across the "neanderthal" from mounds assertion anywhere else.

Andy White

8/29/2015 05:09:30 am

I've been seeing "Neanderthals" incorporated into many different stories lately, but I haven't ever made an effort to sort it all out. Some people want them to be related to giants/Nephilim, despite the fact that we know they were shorter on average than modern humans.

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South Carolina Dragonflies

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