The Iowa Odonata Survey is patterned after a similar "organization" in
New Jersey; i.e., little structure, no meetings, no dues. All you need to do
to become a member is submit your information. Our purpose is to maintain
good data on the occurrence of odonates in our state, educate folks on the bugs
that inhabit many of their favorite nooks and crannies, and provide consultation
to the state's conservation organizations on the critical habitats and environmental
indicators as they relate to the odonata. Water quality is such a major issue
in Iowa environmental concerns and odonates provide us with some great information
on the quality of our watersheds.
Meet the Founding Members
Cruden & Gode's work,
The Odonata of Iowa, was published in
The Bulletin of American Odonatology,
Vol. 6, No. 2. Much of the data you will find here was derived
from their manuscript.
Bob Cruden
Bob is a botanist by trade and a professor at the University of Iowa. He is
a former director of the Lakeside Lab at Lake Okoboji. His project of collecting
and cataloging the odes of Iowa, a project that extended over several years, has
made Iowa one of the best known states in the nation.
O.J. "Bud" Gode
Bud was the other half of the Cruden & Gode team and responsible for the many
dot maps of county records for our state. These records have given us a baseline
for future work. After retiring in Arizona, he passed away on 1 May 2005.
His impact on our current knowledge is immeasurable.
Steve Hummel
Steve is our "data coordinator" and has been studying
and collecting odonates since his college days at the University of Northern Iowa
(longer than he probably wants to admit!). He maintains an extensive personal
database of records as well as a significant collection of voucher specimens.
Steve is our northern Iowa expert since most of his time is spent north of Interstate
80. He is very active in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas having recently served
as its president.
Ann Johnson
AJ is a birder gone bad as she now spends summers chasing bugs. She is our
"web geek" who built the first Iowa Dragonflies and Damselflies web site
back in 1999 after becoming frustrated with trying to learn about these critters
through random web searches. Her personal records are primarily from locations
near her home in south central Iowa. In 2009 she authored Dragonflies and Damselflies in Your Pocket: A Guide to the Odonates
of the Upper Midwest (a Burr Oak guide).
Aaron Brees
Aaron is a former bird bum/unemployed naturalist turned attorney for the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources. He became interested in odes one summer and promptly began
adding new state records near his parents' home in southern Iowa. The combination
of his natural history and legal backgrounds bring a special skill set to growing
our knowledge of Iowa's odonates.
Jim Bangma
Jim, New Jersey's "web
geek", not only gives us an out-of-state perspective but his sense of humor
helps keep other things in perspective as well. Many of the photos on this
site, some taken in Iowa and others from New Jersey, are courtesy of Jim.
He made a major discovery in the odonatology of Iowa while sitting at the computer
reviewing my photos of baskettails, thereby instigating the addition of Epitheca
costalis to the state list. Jim is a co-author of Field Guide to Dragonflies and Damselflies of New Jersey.
Friends of IOS
A special thanks to Jim Durbin for the entry of Cruden & Gode's records
into our database and for supplying a number of his photos.
While our intent is to complete an Iowa photographic collection, we have relied
on a number of people to temporarily fill in the blanks. We are grateful to the
following people for their willingness to share their work:
- Allen Barlow
- Sheryl Chacon
- Doug Danforth
- Robert Geerts
- Karl Legler
- Pete Moulton
- Dennis Paulson
- Keith Turrill
Much remains to be known about the distribution of a number of species and to some
extent which species live here. If you can add to this knowledge, you may
use the
form on this web.