A Three-Shower, Three-New-Species Day

A shower upon waking.  A shower after Lake Cheston.  A third shower after a walk with my friend Greg after work.  Is a three-shower day worthy of celebration?  Probably not.

But a Three-New-Species Day is a whole other thing.

The Lilypad Forktail thrives at Lake Dimmick, where Greg and I walked.  The orange immature female, the blue mature male, and the powdery blue mature female all sunned on the snotgrass.

I also spotted what I think is a Blue-ringed Dancer, a species I've never even read about before.  (I didn't know we had them in the area.)

Finally, I watched a female dragonfly oviposit in the strangest manner I've observed: she hovered inches above the water, abdomen curved in the shape of an apostrophe, and then sort of shook her abdomen down to release her eggs.  I couldn't get as close as I'd like, but close enough to capture her image.  A quick search through Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast suggests that she is a Double-ringed Pennant.

Score!


Correction: Bugguide tells me the next-to-last photo, which I thought was a Blue-ringed Dancer, is just another Lilypad Forktail.  Two new species, not three.