Journal of the British Dragonfly Society
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J. Br. Dragonfly Society, Volume 26 No. 1, April 2010 Journal of the CONTENTS RICHARD A. BAKER - Robert John Tillyard (1881-1937) F.R.S. British Dragonfly Society an account of his life and legacy with special reference to Odonatology .........................................................................1 Volume 26 Number 1 April 2010 STEVE CHAM - Variations in the key features of exuviae of the Variable Damselfly Coenagrion pulchellum (Vander Linden) and the use of a score matrix to determine identification ......................................................................10 NORMAN W. MOORE - Remembering Encounters with Dragonflies from the 1930s to the Launching of the BDS in 1983 .....................................................................................29 DEREK K. JENKINS - Folding wing behaviour in the Golden- ringed Dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii .........................32 PETER J. MILL - Species Review 3: The Large Red Damselfly Pyrrhosoma nymphula (Sulzer) with notes on its close relative the Greek Red Damselfly Pyrrhosoma elisabethae Schmidt ...............................................................................34 The aims of the British Dragonfly Society (BDS) are to promote and encourage the study and conservation INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS of Odonata and their natural habitats, especially in the United Kingdom. • Authors are asked to study these instructions with care and to prepare their manuscripts The Journal of the British Dragonfly Society, published twice a year, contains articles on Odonata that have accordingly, in order to avoid unnecessary delay in the editing of their manuscripts. been recorded from the United Kingdom and articles on European Odonata written by members of the Soci- • Word processed manuscripts may be submitted in electronic form either on disk or by e-mail. ety. • Manuscripts should be one and a half spaced, on one side of the page only and with margins of at least 25mm on both sides and top and bottom. Footnotes should be avoided. Articles for publication should be sent to the Editor. Instructions for authors appear inside the back cover. • Use of these terms is acceptable: ‘exuvia’ for cast skin (plural: ‘exuviae’); ‘larva’ (instead of ‘naiad’ or ‘nymph’); ‘prolarva’ to designate the first larval instar. • Dates in the text should be expressed in the form: 24 July 2010. Trustees of the British Dragonfly Society Journal Advisory Panel: • References cited in the text should be in the form ‘(Longfield, 1949)’ or ‘...as noted by Longfield Chairman: P.Taylor T.G. Beynon (1949)’. All references cited in the text (and only these) should be listed alphabetically at the end Vice-Chairman: D.E. Gennard S.J. Brooks of the article in the following forms: Secretary: H.G. Curry D. Mann Hammond, C.O. 1983. The Dragonflies of Great Britain and Ireland 2nd Edition (revised by Treasurer: B.J. Walker J. Pickup R. Merritt), Harley Books, Colchester, 116pp. Convenor of the Dragonfly ConservationGroup: D. Smallshire Longfield, C. 1949.The Dragonflies of the London area. The London Naturalist 28: 90-98. Back numbers of the Journal can be purchased • Titles of journals should be written out in full. Ordinary Trustees • Tables should be presented on separate, unnumbered pages. S.C. Davidson from the Librarian / Archivist at £2.75 per copy to members or £5.50 per copy to non-members. • Legends for figures should be presented together in sequence on a single, unnumbered page. • D. Goddard • Figures should be prepared in black and scaled to allow a reduction of 1.5 to 3 times. P. Reeve • The legend for each table and illustration should allow its contents to be understood fully without M.P. Tyrrell reference to the text. Please refer to a recent issue of the journal for further style details. Species Reviews: The third species review appears in this issue. Others are in the process SCIENTIFIC AND ENGLISH NAMES OF BRITISH ODONATA of being written so if anyone is considering ADDRESSES writing a review of their favourite species, ZYGOPTERA DAMSELFLIES Aeshna juncea Common Hawker please contact the Editor first. Calopteryx splendens Banded Demoislle Aeshna mixta Migrant Hawker Editor: Calopteryx virgo Beautiful Demoiselle Anax ephippiger Vagrant Emperor P.J. Mill Lestes barbarus Southern Emerald Damselfly Anax imperator Emperor Dragonfly Ordinary membership subscription £15.00 Lestes dryas Scarce Emerald Damselfly Anax junius Green Darner 8 Cookridge Grove Lestes sponsa Emerald Damselfly Anax parthenope Lesser Emperor Overseas subscription £20.00 Leeds, LS16 7LH Lestes viridis Willow Emerald Damselfly Brachytron pratense Hairy Dragonfly All subscriptions are due 1 April each year. Sympecma fusca Winter Damselfly Gomphus flavipes Yellow-legged Clubtail e-mail: [email protected] Coenagrion armatum Norfolk Damselfly Gomphus vulgatissimus Common Club-tail Other subscription rates (library, corporate) on Coenagrion hastulatum Northern Damselfly Cordulegaster boltonii Gold-ringed Dragonfly Secretary: Coenagrion lanulatum Irish Damselfly Cordulia aenea Downy Emerald application to the Membership Secretary, who H.G. Curry Coenagrion mercuriale Southern Damselfly Somatochlora arctica Northern Emerald will also deal with membership enquiries. Coenagrion puella Azure Damselfly Somatochlora metallica Brilliant Emerald 23 Bowker Way Coenagrion pulchellum Variable Damselfly Oxygastra curtisii Orange-spotted Emerald Whittlesey Coanagrion scitulum Dainty Damselfly Leucorrhinia dubia White-faced Darter BDS Website: www.dragonflysoc.org.uk Erythromma najas Red-eyed Damselfly Leucorrhinia pectoralis Large White-faced Darter Peterborough, PE7 1PY Erythromma viridulum Small Red-eyed Damselfly Libellula depressa Broad-bodied Chaser e-mail: [email protected] Pyrrhosoma nymphula Large Red Damselfly Libellula fulva Scarce Chaser Enallagma cyathigerum Common Blue Damselfly Libellula quadrimaculata Four-spotted Chaser Ischnura elegans Blue-tailed Damselfly Orthetrum cancellatum Black-tailed Skimmer Librarian / Archivist: Ischnura pumilio Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly Orthetrum coerulescens Keeled Skimmer D. Goddard Ceriagrion tenellum Small Red Damselfly Crocothemis erythraea Scarlet Darter 30 Cliffe Hill Avenue Platycnemis pennipes White-legged Damselfly Sympetrum danae Black Darter Cover Illustration: Male Pyrrhosoma nymphula. Stapleford Sympetrum flaveolum Yellow-winged Darter Photograph by Steve Cham ANISOPTERA DRAGONFLIES Sympetrum fonscolombii Red-veined Darter Nottingham, NG9 7HD Aeshna affinis Southern Migrant Hawker Sympetrum pedomontanum Banded Darter e-mail: [email protected] Aeshna caerulea Azure Hawker Sympetrum sanguineum Ruddy Darter Aeshna cyanea Southern Hawker Sympterum striolatum* Common Darter* Aeshna grandis Brown Hawker Sympetrum vulgatum Vagrant Darter Membership Secretary Aeshna isosceles Norfolk Hawker Pantala flavescens Wandering Glider L. Curry The Journal of the British Dragonfly Society is 23 Bowker Way * Includes dark specimens in the north-west formerly treated as a separate species, Sympetrum nigrescens Highland Darter. printed by Artisan Litho, Abingdon, Oxford. Whittlesey www.artisanlitho.co.uk Species list in accordance with Davies, D.A.L. & Tobin, P. (1984 & 1985) The Dragonflies of the World: A systematic list of the extant species of Peterborough, PE7 1PY Odonata. Vols 1 & 2. e-mail: [email protected] Registered Charity No. 800196 J. Br. Dragonfly Society, Volume 26 No. 1, 2010 1 Robert John Tillyard (1881-1937) F.R.S. – an account of his life and legacy with special reference to Odonatology RICHARD A. BAKER Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Summary R. J. Tillyard had a short but remarkable life into which he packed so much scientific work. Trained as a mathematician at Cambridge, he soon left England for Australia to teach at the grammar school in Sydney before embarking on a career in scientific research and then scientific administration in Australia and New Zealand. However his first love was in natural history and in particular dragonflies. He published about 180 scientific papers; also five books, his best known being “The Biology of Dragonflies”. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1925. Introduction One hundred years ago Tillyard was publishing widely on odonates and this therefore is a suitable time to look again at his life and work. Most dragonfly specialists will remember his name as the author of the classic work: “The Biology of Dragonflies” published in 1917 (Tillyard, 1917) but few will know that he was an outstanding entomologist or be aware of his interesting and varied career. The fact that he was an internationally recognised naturalist may raise the question – but who was he? Robert, also called Robin, was born Figure 1. Photograph of R. J. Tillyard in Norwich, Norfolk on the 31 January with his signature, (from Evans,1946). 1881. His father, John Joseph Tillyard, Reproduced with kind permission of the was a solicitor and his mother was Mary Linnean Society of New South Wales. Ann Frances Wilson. Coming from East 2 J. Br. Dragonfly Society, Volume 26 No. 1, 2010 Anglia, mostly a rural county particularly in his day, it would not be surprising to hear that from an early age he was interested in natural history. However, there are few clues to his boyhood interests. It is known that he was interested in and collected butterflies and received book prizes on natural history. He entered Dover College in Kent as a scholar in 1895, during the headship of the Reverend W. C.