Montana Odonata List Summary

These are now one of our best known aquatic insect orders. We currently have 10 families 26 genera and 82 species, but a few of these still require better data. We found found 3 more in 1995, and we can expect a few more species yet.

Recent Discoveries

1995 added 3 species to the known Montana fauna.

  1. Kelly Miller and Mike Ivie described Enallagma optimolocus as a new species.
  2. Mark Hooten and I took a small series of Aeshna subarctica, which was expected here.
  3. Kelly Miller took 2 specimens of Pantala flavcescens, which were not expected here. Kelly thinks they may be migrants and not established here. This seems reasonable given the lack of specimens and the well known exploratory flights of this species.

Research Needs

This should now be a good order for some serious ecological work. Many of our habitats have many similar and closely related species- how these partition their resources should be very worth while.

Some name changes

Acknowledgments

  • Thomas Donnelly kindly provided his Montana collection records for use here.
  • Kelly Miller took the lead on getting our odonates better known, while he was an undergraduate here at MSU. I hope to work with him to get the species accounts on-line soon.
  • Richard Orr has verified many Montana specimens and added some new distribution records from his own collecting here.
  • George Roemhild did much work with this group in Montana, especially damselflies, while here at MSU.

22 APR 1996 D.L. Gustafson
AIM home page
dlg@rivers.oscs.montana.edu