Odonata from the North Fork of the Ninnescah River below Cheney DamSummer 2000: This site is one which I have visited on and off for a number of years. It is the place from which I collected the only specimen of Brechmorhoga mendax for Kansas in early spring a few years ago. It has been a place for consistently collecting Macromia illinoiensis and the gomphids Progomphus obscurus and Gomphus externus. The latest trip I took (in 2000 - see below for visits in 2001) was on 6 July. The most common odonates were the Anisoptera Libellula luctuosa and Erythemis simplicicollis and the Zygoptera Argia moesta. There were a few Celithemis eponina (see picture at right of a male specimen) and Pachydiplax longipennis as well as Tramea lacerata around.
Flying over the river were the corduliids Epitheca (Epicordulia) princeps and an occasional gomphid. By beating the overhanging grasses along a portion of the bank, I was able to dislodge a number of male gomphids, mostly Gomphus militaris, and a single male Dromogomphus spoliatus (see pictures below: G. militaris on the left, D. spoliatus on the right). Female G. militaris are pictured on the Mined Lands Wildlife Area Odonata page.
(This visit made on 13 July, 2000.)
Spring, 2001: I visited the N. Fork of the Ninnescah again on 16
May. There were teneral female and male Lestes rectangularis damselflies
(right and below right) resting in the cattails (below left) along a small drainage stream that feeds into the river.
Also in
the cattails as well as along the stream and over some small beaver ponds were Libellula
pulchella (mostly mature males), Libellula lydia (males, some fully
mature with brilliantly white abdomens, others still with brown abdomens), and
mature male (and an occasional female) Erythemis simplicicollis (below
left). A
male Anax junius would come by regularly as it flew a fairly long beat up
the stream. There were both Ischnura posita (below right) and Ischnura
verticalis (males and females) in the cattails and sedges along the water.
The beaver pond (left) was also patrolled by very aggressive Corduliidae males: Epitheca costalis and E. petechilais (below left).
The river itself (below right) was being patrolled by Gomphidae males. I was unsuccessful at catching any of them, but later in the evening was able to take two female Gomphus (Gomphurus) externus (below left) as they came up to the edge of a wheat field along the banks of the river to roost for the night.
