Lance-tipped Darner

While Erika and I returned to our car at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 24 August 2020, a dragonfly flew up and perched in the tall roadside grass. With help from Dennis Paulson, we identified it as a Lance-tipped Darner. This species can be told by the female’s large, prominent cerci—the terminal appendages at the end of the abdomen. Lance-tipped Darners are found across the northern United States and southern Canada. Although they are common east of the Cascades, very few records exist in western Washington. The wildlife refuge is only one of two locations were populations are known—the other records are from the Columbia Valley in the southern part of the state. Unlike other darners, this species lives at seasonal ponds that dry up in late summer (Paulson pers. com.). I found Lance-tipped Darners in Minnesota, including in Erika’s Northfield garden.