[Odonata-l] specimens needed

[Mark A. McPeek]

Hi,


In the past year I have started a new project on the evolution of male 
and female mating structures in the odonate. The project involves using 
a micro CT scanner to generate 3-dimensional models of the reproductive 
claspers of males and the thoraces of females to understand how males 
and females choose one another for mating.

The CT Scanner generates a series of slices of the structures of an 
individual at a resolution of 2.5 microns (that’s one millionth of a 
meter!!). This is the same type of machine that reconstructed the 
pre-Cambrian fossils of embryos from China (i.e., Hagadorn et al. 2006. 
Integrated X-ray insights into cellular and subcellular structures of 
Neoproterozoic animal embryos: Science 314:291-294). From these slices I 
generate 3-D computer models of male (i.e., cerci and paraprocts) and 
female (anterior portions of thorax) parts. The first goal of the 
project is to reconstruct the evolution of these structures. After we 
have this completed, we will build “docking” models to estimate what a 
female feel when a male grabs her for mating. The ultimate goal is to 
estimate which species might hybridize with one another.


If you’d like to see what these models look like, you can find a couple at

http://anax.dartmouth.edu/~mcpeek/bodyModels.html.

This summer I’d like to complete an analysis of four major zygopteran 
genera. These are Enallagma & Ischnura (of course), Argia, Calopteryx 
and Lestes. I have chosen these because good molecular phylogenies have 
been published for these. If you could spare some specimens from your 
personal collections, I would appreciate receiving 1-2 males and 1-2 
females of each species in these four genera from as many people as can 
spare them. Obviously, the rarer species in each genus would be more 
useful. I am making a general broadcast for specimens because I’d like 
to get specimens from across the ranges of each species if possible to 
get some idea of geographic variation for the more common species.

Any kind of dried specimens are fine. The X-ray is absorbed by the 
exoskeleton, and so it really doesn’t matter how specimens were 
processed. Even ethanol-preserved specimens will work just fine – I’ll 
just dry them.

If you could spare some, please send them to:

Mark A. McPeek
Centerra Biolabs
Dartmouth College
7 Lucent Drive
Lebanon, New Hampshire 03766

Please drop me an e-mail if you can send specimens, so I can be looking 
for them.

As always, I am most grateful for all the wonderful help that everyone 
has provided me over the years with specimens. The odonate community is 
just fantastic!

Thanks,

Mark