Dragonfly Genera of
the New World:
An Illustrated and Annotated Key to the Anisoptera
Rosser
W. Garrison, Natalia von Ellenrieder, and Jerry A. Louton
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD
2006; 368 pages
Price: $99 Hardcover,
ISBN: 0-8018-8446-2
In
recent years, comprehensive keys for the Odonata occurring in the United
States and Canada have been published (Westfall and May 1996, Needham et
al. 2005). Along with a number of field guides (Dunkle 2000, Curry 2001,
Manolis 2003, Nikula et al. 2003, Acorn 2004, Lam 2004, Abbott 2005,
Beaton 2007), this has lead to an explosion of interest in the Odonata.
One geographical area that has seen little attention is the Neotropics,
with only a few books of relatively limited scope written on Central
America (Förster 2001), Costa Rica (Esquivel 2006), and Brazil (Lencioni
2005, 2006) available. Garrison, von Ellenrieder, and Louton have filled
this very important gap and they have done so with a resource that will
certainly stand the test of time.
Donnelly (2006) wrote that the Dragonfly Genera of the New World
is the most important odonate book published in several years and I
agree with him. Workers north of Mexico will probably not find it a
necessary reference because of the numerous resources available to them,
but for anyone working in Latin America, this book is a must-have. There
have been precious few resources available for odonatologists working in
the New World Tropics to identify taxa. In Central America, the standard
has been Calvert’s (1901-1908) Biologia Centrali Americana.
Förster (2001) provided an update of this treatise by compiling more
recent keys and figures from the literature and South America has
remained untouched until even more recently. The only comprehensive work
for South America is Heckman (2006), which contains keys for larvae and
adults of known species, but it is largely a compilation of the
published literature.
Garrison et al. have used their vast collective expertise in the tropics
to assemble this work, which “attempts to provide keys to adults,
supported by abundant illustrations, to genera of dragonflies (suborder
Anisoptera) from anywhere in the New World.” Given that the New World
tropics support some 1,650 of odonata species in 195 genera, about 30%
of the world’s total, this is no small accomplishment. The authors state
that the closest areas in number of species are continental Southeast
Asia, with 959 species, and Indonesia, with 673 species.
The
authors have produced original keys that are richly illustrated, helping
users as they move through the task of identifying specimens. The
authors note that Borror’s (1945) keys to the New World Libellulidae
influenced their work, but that the keys were often “out of date, long,
and contorted.” They used the DELTA (Description Language for Taxonomy,
Dallwitz et al. 2000) key-generating feature and were able to reduce
many of Borror’s keys, using many of the same characters and states, by
two-thirds, with no loss of resolving power and a great increase in
their usability. Anyone who has used a key knows that you are often left
with many questions rather than one answer. The authors have done an
exemplary job in creating and illustrating these keys so that the
questions are minimized.
The
authors start out with a brief but adequate eight-page introduction to
key morphological features, which are well illustrated. This chapter
contains information on basic morphology, construction of the keys,
techniques for collecting and preserving specimens, and a very useful
section on the main repositories for New World Odonata collections,
including private collections. This is followed by a key to the seven
families of dragonflies found in the New World. Each chapter focuses on
a family, or in the case of the Libellulidae, the group is broken into
three chapters, each representing a subfamily. The authors introduce all
seven Anisoptera families found in the New World with a brief summary of
their world distribution, the number of genera and species found in the
New World, a list of diagnostic characters supported by figures and
significant references, and finally a comment on the status of
classification, again supported by references.
Each of the 124 dragonfly genera found in the New World are described
and discussed in detail, often with ample figures, to help the reader
recognize the defining characters of the group. Each genus is also
accompanied by a map showing its full distribution, and a list of
species in that genus, including known synonymies and type reference.
Key references are given for each genus, along with a short description,
unique characters, status of classification, potential for new species,
and comments on known habitat preferences. I found the addition of
information like Generotype designation and references to species with
larval descriptions especially useful.
The
back of the book contains 27 pages of references and a well-constructed
Distribution Table listing genera by country for quick reference. There
is a list of the over 1,600 figures contained throughout the text. The
center of the book contains eight color plates with photographs of 24
species. Each of these resources adds to the overall value of the book.
An erratum of known errors is available at http://www.odonatacentral.org/index.php/PageAction.get/name/DragonflyGeneraNWErrata.
Garrison, von Ellenrieder and Louton have produced an outstanding volume
that will be a long-standing contribution to the odonatological
community. I am looking forward to the volume on damselflies on which
the authors are currently working.
References
Abbott, J.C. 2005.
Dragonflies and damselflies of Texas and the South-central United
States. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Acorn, J. 2004.
Damselflies of Alberta: flying neon toothpicks in the grass. The
University of Alberta Press, Edmonton.
Beaton, G. 2007.
Dragonflies and damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast. University of
Georgia Press, Athens.
Borror, D. J. 1945.
A key to the new world genera of Libellulidae (Odonata). Annals of the
Entomological Society of America 38: 168-194.
Calvert, P.P. 1901-1908.
Odonata, In: Biologia Centrali Americana: Insecta Neuroptera, R.H.
Porter and Dulau Co., London.
Curry, J.R. 2001.
Dragonflies of Indiana. Indiana Academy of Science, Indianapolis.
Dallwitz, M.J., T.A. Paine and E.J. Zurcher. 2000.
Principles of interactive keys. Web-based document http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/
Donnelly, T.W. 2006.
Book review: Dragonfly Genera of the New World. Argia 18: 21-22.
Dunkle, S.W. 2000.
Dragonflies through binoculars: a field guide to dragonflies of North
America. Oxford University Press, New York.
Esquivel, C. 2006.
Dragonflies and damselflies of Middle America and the Caribbean.
Editorial INBio, Heredia, Costa Rica.
Förster, S. 2001.
The dragonflies of Central America exclusive of Mexico and the West
Indies: A guide to their identification. Gunnar Rehfeldt, Wolfenbüttel,
Germany.
Heckman, C.W. 2006.
Encyclopedia of South American Aquatic Insects: Odonata-Anisoptera.
Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Lam, E. 2004.
Damselflies of the Northeast. Biodiversity Books, Forest Hills, NY.
Lencioni, F.A.A. 2005.
Damselflies of Brazil: An illustrated identification guide, 1 – Non-Coenagrionidae
families. All Print Editora, São Paulo, Brasil.
Lencioni, F.A.A. 2006.
Damselflies of Brazil: An illustrated identification guide, 2 –
Coenagrionidae. All Print Editora, São Paulo, Brasil.
Manolis, T. 2003.
Dragonflies and damselflies of California. University of California
Press, Berkeley.
Needham, J.G., M.J. Westfall and M.L. May. 2000.
Dragonflies of North America. Revised edition. Scientific Publishers,
Gainesville, FL.
Nikula, B.J., L. Loose, and M.R. Burne. 2003.
A field guide to dragonflies and damselflies of Massachusetts. Natural
Heritage and Endangered Species Program, Massachusetts Division of
Fisheries and Wildlife, Boston.
Westfall, M.J. and M.L. May. 1996.
Damselflies of North America. Scientific Publishers, Gainesville, FL.
John C. Abbott
Texas Natural Science Center
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX
E-mail: jcabbott@mail.utexas.edu
American Entomology
Vol. 54, No. 1, Spring 2008
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