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New species records for Mississippi: an expected dragonfly and an unexpected damselfly.

Article Excerpt
The list of Odonata for Mississippi expanded from the first published account of 50 species in 1950 (Bick, 1950) to 83 species over thirty years later (Stanford and Lago, 1981). It continued to grow considerably, from 114 species at the start of 2002 (Donnelly, 2002) to 130 species by the end of 2004 (Abbott, 2005). Some of the most recent additions include Dromogomphus spoliatus, Ischnura prognata, and Telebasis byersi. The Mississippi list surpassed Louisiana's (128 spp., Mauffray, 1998; Abbott, 2005) during the last three years, but it still trails behind the other neighbor states; Alabama (176 spp.), Arkansas (136 spp.), and Tennessee (150 spp.) (Abbott, 2005). In this article we report details surrounding the addition of the dragonfly Arigomphus lentulus (Stillwater Clubtail) and damselfly Lestes forficula (Rainpool Spreadwing) to the Mississippi fauna, which brings the total Anisoptera (dragonflies) to 94 spp. and total Zygoptera (damselflies) to 38 spp.

Previous records for A. lentulus are concentrated mostly west of the Mississippi River in eastern Oklahoma and Texas and in western Arkansas. Additional records exist north of Mississippi and stretch into Illinois and Indiana (Donnelly, 2004a). Like other members of the genus, A. lentulus often breeds in ponds, lakes and slow areas of streams, often with mud or clay substrate (Abbott, 2005).

The first author...