The Digital Dragonfly Project is part of the Entomology Program at the Texas A&M University Research and Extension Center at Stephenville. It was initiated when we found that living Odonata, particularly the dragonflies, could be scanned in high resolution and in true color via a digital flatbed scanner. Dragonflies are difficult to photograph and are uncooperative models in the laboratory. However, when the specimen is cooled or rendered senseless with carbon dioxide, it will hold still long enough to be arranged on a flatbed scanner and scanned in 24 bit or higher color and in 300 - 600 dpi resolution. The details may be found on the Digital Dragonfly Web Site under the section Specimen Handling.
The project is divided into three web sites. The first is the Digital Dragonfly site: http://www.dragonflies.org/ The goal of this site is to present one scan of the top and one scan of the side of a male and a female of each species of dragonfly found in the central Texas area. There is no set boundary, but this area of Texas is where most of our other entomology program activities take place. The site is organized by family and genus. The species are listed alphabetically by scientific name, but the common name approved by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas is included also. This list may be found on the Odonata Information Network web site.
The second web site is the Digital Dragonfly Museum, which is found at http://stephenville.tamu.edu/~fmitchel/dragonfly/ This site continues where the Digital Dragonfly site leaves off. While representative specimens may be found of many species of dragonflies, there is still much variation within a species. This is especially true of teneral (newly emerged) specimens. Males of many species also change color with time. The goal of the Museum is to collect 20 - 30 images per sex per species of each of the species in our area. This will take some time, although progress is being made. We will try and update the site every few months with any new scans available.
The final site is the Damselflies of Texas site. Damselflies are much more tractable models for photography in the field, but are less amenable to scanning than the dragonflies. This is mainly due to their shape and the fact that some, especially the Argia change color when cooled. This website contain both photographs and images of damselflies, as well as distribution maps. The maps are based on somewhat dated information and our own limited collection data. Another repository of Texas distribution data may be found at the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Houston, Texas and Vicinity web site. Additional Texas distribution data from John Abbott's dissertation being conducted at the University of North Texas are combined with data from this site and 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.