Male mating success is often determined by territory ownership and traits associated with successful territory defense. Empirical studies have shown that the territory owner wins the majority of fights with challenging males. Several physical and physiological traits have been found to correlate with resource holding potential. In addition, in aerial insects, wing design may also have a strong ...

While the monophyly of winged insects (Pterygota) is well supported, phylogenetic relationships among the most basal extant pterygote lineages are problematic. Ephemeroptera (mayflies) and Odonata (dragonflies) represent the two most basal extant lineages of winged insects, and determining their relationship with regard to Neoptera (remaining winged insects) is a critical step toward understand...

Patagonia is a vast landmass with a distinctive environmental and biotic heterogeneity. Its Odonata biodiversity is the best known of South America, and it is composed of 36 species, of which more than 50% are endemic. We summarize the main taxonomic, distributional and biological information including illustrated keys for adults and known larvae, and distributional maps.

Climate change is expected to have substantial impacts on the composition of freshwater communities, and many species are threatened by the loss of climatically suitable habitat. In this study we identify Australian Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) vulnerable to the effects of climate change on the basis of exposure, sensitivity and pressure to disperse in the future. We used an ensemble o...

Relatively little information is available on environmental associations and the conservation of Odonata in the Maltese Islands. Aquatic habitats are normally spatio-temporally restricted, often located within predominantly rural landscapes, and are thereby susceptible to farmland water management practices, which may create additional pressure on water resources. This study investigates how od...

Directional asymmetry (DA) has received considerably less attention than fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in the literature. Evid ence for D A, howev er, is building am ong insect tax a. We ex amined as ymmetries in two wing traits within both sex es of the dam selfly Calopte ryx mac ulata (Beauvois) (Odonata: Calopterygidae), sampled from three sites in southeastern Ontario. After accounting for mea...

The larva of Aphylla protracta is described and figured. It is characterized by 3rd antennomere subcylindrical, flattened on ventral surface, 4.2 times longer than its widest part. Abdomen with dorsal protuberances well developed on S2-4, reduced on S5, vestigial or absent on S6-9; lateral spines lacking entirely, tergites 5-8 with minute reddish setae, tergite 9 with abundant, small, reddish s...

A new species, Somatochlora shennong sp. nov. (holotype ♂, Dajiuhu National Wetland Park in Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, Hubei Province, China, 9 August 2012) is described, illustrated, and compared with the related species S. dido Needham and S. taiwana Inoue & Yokota. 

Unusual biogeographic patterns of closely related groups reflect events in the past, and molecular analyses can help to elucidate these events. While ample research on the origin of disjunct distributions of different organism groups in the Western Paleartic has been conducted, such studies are rare for Eastern Palearctic organisms. In this paper we present a phylogeographic analysis of the dis...

The implications of insectsÕ vision for territorial defense have been relatively little studied in the Þeld. In the dragonßy Perithemis tenera Say we investigated whether either the angle at which an intruder was viewed by a territorial resident or the background against which it was viewed affected the detection of that intruder. Residents detected intruders at a greater distance if the intrud...