The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology has the second largest collection of Odonata in the country, with something like 300,000 specimens of around 3,000 species. There is also a boatload of old literature, correspondence, and journals, and best of all, a collection manager that rocks: Mark O'Brien. I (Nannothemis) am in the home stretch of determining which species to include in the Wayne County checklist, so it was time to once again head up to the UMMZ and tie up some loose ends.
The main goal was to verify the identity, or existence, of some specimens mentioned in the literature by three of the earliest authors of checklists of Michigan odes: Hermann Hagen (late 1800s), Francis Byers (1920s), and Edward Kormondy (1950s). Sometimes a single species would be mentioned by Hagen and repeated by Byers and Kormondy, who may or may not have actually examined some specimen that was still (at that time) in the UMMZ. Such was the case with Spiny Baskettail (Epitheca spinigera). From its first mention by Hagen in 1875, a single specimen from Detroit was mentioned in several papers as well as correspondence. Unfortunately, it was identified by at least four different names and three different species. Mark and I looked high and low for it. We did find another specimen that was usually mentioned as part of the same group, in a drawer of type specimens.


Today, adult Odonata specimens are stored in a clear envelope with a card that includes all the collection data. Back in the day, however, they were folded up in paper triangles. Lots of them. Boxes and drawers of them. For common species, such as Dusky Clubtail (Gomphus spicatus), we had to mine through a ton of envelopes to find the one I was looking for. It was one that had been misidentified in the literature, and corrected by a later author. I just wanted to make sure it was right.


In the end, I resolved most of my questions. There will be about a dozen species that have been attributed to Wayne County in past literature that we were unable to corroborate with a specimen, or turned out to be misidentified. These incorrect records just keep perpetuating themselves in the literature until someone is determined to finally figure out what is really what.
The final tally, by the way, is 89 species now represented by valid vouchers, all in the UMMZ. We've found over 30 of them. There are 5 additional species we consider "hypothetical" as we have sight or photo records, but no specimens. We'll be putting together a new checklist soon.