LOLDragonfly

Another photo from last week at Menards some home improvement store somewhere, if you can believe it. Thinking back on it, I wonder if this dragonfly was feeling entirely well: s/he let me get fairly close and didn't fly away, or even move, but then I was also trying not to startle it, either, and I didn't get that close. I like to think it was healthy and happy -- or, you know, as healthy and happy as dragonflies get. They're kind of hard to read. Not a lot of emoting going on.

I don't know what species this is; the Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders includes a decent number of dragonflies, but none of them resemble this much at all.

Because I was pretty proud of the picture in its own right, here's the non-LOL version:


There's really quite a lot of detail visible in the large version of the picture: I highly recommend opening it in a separate window. The plant it's on is, of course, Russian sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia.