northeast-flora-and-fauna

Those of us living in the real world don't get a chance to see unicorns ... unless they are Unicorn Clubtail dragonflies, that is. But while the mythical unicorn has a very prominent horn, the Unicorn Clubtail has a more modest point on their occiput (an area between the eyes at the top of the head ). Although some descriptions call this point "conspicuous": It's pretty easy to miss it as a field mark, and isn't even easy to see in pictures like the 1 below. On the other hand, if you're an entomologist examining a captured dragonfly , it suddenly becomes a very useful way of identifying these guys. Clubtail dragonflies are a bit different from the average dragonfly:  Their abdomens are mostly thinner than other types of dragonflies, but which widen at the last few segments (S7-S9) into something like a club. At least this is usually true for the clubtails, though there are some species with virtually no club. (Unfortunately for the club analogy, the clubta...

Unicorns (or at least Unicorn Clubtail dragonflies) may be more common than I realized; I got my 2nd picture of one last month. The first one I showed you looked darker/plainer than most pictures I've seen online and in my field guides, but had the "unicorn point" field mark that pretty much identifies them. In today's picture I've got almost the opposite situation; the coloring looks more like outside pictures, though it's even harder to detect the "unicorn horn" (though I think I've convinced myself that it's there when I blew up the original picture). June 15, 2022 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 210217557, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) There does seem to be a small point in the lime green between the eyes when I expand the picture. (The main problem I have with using it as a field mark is that I can rarely get this good a look at a dragonfly when I'm in the field and can only use it after processing the photos ...

A couple weeks ago at Fairview Farm I met a unicorn! Okay, it's really a Unicorn Clubtail dragonfly. The pond there has sort of a mini-pier that extends out into their pond, and as I went there I saw this largish dark dragonfly perched out there. Though this is the most widespread clubtail in New Jersey, they tend to shy away from us humans. After getting this picture I tried to move in for a closer shot and (hopefully) a view of the face, but the dragonfly up and left. I wasn't able to get any more pictures of it. June 1, 2022 at Fairview Farm Photo 205020424, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) I had never seen one of these before and didn't know what it was before  posting it in iNaturalist . They got the "unicorn" part of their name from a prominent  occiput , the region of their head that's sort of above/between their compound eyes. If you expand the picture above, I think the "horn" is the slight tip of the lime green area between ...