T
he maps contained in this website are based on somewhat dated information, our own limited
collection data, and also data from another website,
The Dragonflies and Damselflies of
Houston, Texas and Vicinity. We have been able to establish damselfly collection records
from only 135 of the 254 counties in the state of Texas (see map--right); however,
Dr. John
Abbott has made extensive collections throughout the state
and distribution data from his recently completed dissertation should increase the number of
counties significantly. His data combined with data from this site are being used to test an
experimental bioinformatics engine from the Texas A&M University Department of Botany.
The results may be seen on the TAMU
Bioinformatics Working Group Projects Page.
A
recently published book,'Damselflies of North America' by Minter Westfall and Michael May lists 161 species of damselflies in North America with 66 species that are possibly found in Texas. Using their book and county distribution records from other authors (primarily Clifford Johnson and W. Garrison) we were able to determine that 23 damselfly species should occur in the north-central Texas area. Knowing what species we could expect to find in the area made identification much easier. Since we wanted to continue to expand the number of damselfly species included in this website, it became increasingly obvious that county distribution records, along with habitat preferences, would be extremely valuable in knowing where to collect addition species.F
or this purpose we decided to divide the state into the biotic provinces listed by Blair, 1960 (see map--below) and list the species that occur in each province. Blair actually lists seven biotic provinces for Texas; however, one of these, the Navahonian comprises only a small portion of two counties in west Texas and was not included on the maps. Map legend: 1. Each biotic province is shown in a different color. 2. The dark colored counties of each province are the counties for which damselfly collection data are available (same as map above). 3. A white dot within a county indicates that the species listed for that map has been reported from that county. 4. Species that occur in only one, two, or three of the biotic provinces are shown on maps that include only those provinces in which they occur. 5. If a species occurs in more than three of the provinces we list it as occurring statewide and all of the biotic provinces are shown on the map. |
