Rusty SnakeTAIL
This handsome fellow is a Rusty Snaketail dragonfly. I took a road trip up to Darby Creek near Columbus on May 18, 2024, with Jim Lemon. We found numerous Rusty Snaketails in a large meadow by Darby Creek.
This is a female Rusty Snaketail at Darby Creek.
Another female Rusty Snaketail. These are beautiful dragonflies. The only close look-alike in the Dayton area would be the Eastern Ringtail, but those fly later in the year. Rusty Snaketails fly mostly in May and June, with only a few stragglers later in the summer. Eastern Ringtails are just getting started in July.
There are many species of snaketails in the eastern U.S., but some are quite localized. Snaketail dragonflies are picky little prima donnas that require pristine, unpolluted rivers. Rusty Snaketails are probably the most pollution-tolerant of the group, but even so, they apparently cannot handle the rivers in Dayton.
Rusty Snaketails are not known to occur in the Dayton area. The nearest populations are at Darby Creek and Deer Creek State Park.
