Hines Emerald Dragonfly and the Devil Crayfish

[Mark K]

I am posting this in the Conservation section because even though this doesn't have any real direct SMB cnnection.....

This area in question is the exact site of, in the Chicago area- documented- physical contribution to some sort of conservation event.

So this was just east of Lemont Road.  

It was where I learned about Water Willow and I met Bob Rung.  Only 7 guys showed up, Mike Quigley who brought a boat with and was pretty much more useful than anybody, Norm came out and chipped in but he worked 2nd shift and had to understandably split and..... Me. The budget was pretty low at the time we provided a cooler of beverages.  I never got to know Bob all that well, and he always refered to me as... one of the seven and was really, really skeptical about fishing clubs etc.  

 if you don't already know this, there is a federal  and state  protected  dragonfly.  It only occurs in 4 states and it's rare in all of them. Here in Illinois it only is found in the DesPlaines river.  Right there.

I knew about the dragonfly.  There was a big stink put up about the I355 extension (south of I55) which pretty much sits right in the middle of the territory.  

What I did not know about the dragonfly was this relationship to a crawdad, pointed out to me in this article by a co-worker:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2019/Crayfish-Saving-Dragonflies/

I believe the Urban Stream Research Center would be the people who raised the clams  a couple years ago on the Dupe- the Mack Road  planting/ clam release. 

So I am throwing out a few ideas (short of hypothesis)

As I understand it, the worst thing about rusty crayfish is that they are big crawdads with humungous claws, they displace native species and because they are such a badass crawdad are less likely to be eaten natives, that the latter is more likely to be eaten

Certain snakes, I knew winter in crayfish burrows one is the massasauga, the marsh rattlesnake.  Non existent here anymore.

Kirklands snake.  I never saw one. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Clifford]

Not a whole lot to go on in the article, but are they assuming that introducing more devil crayfish will create more burrows, hence more dragonflies?

[Mike Clifford]

Another place this relationship is being studied. 

https://www.inhs.illinois.edu/outreach/spotlight/devil-crayfish/

[Mark K]

https://www.dupageforest.org/blog/crayfish-help-hines-emerald-dragonfly

 

https://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered/insects/hed/pdf/HED5YearReviewMay2013.pdf

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C5ORVv5Wi4

 

[Mark K]

2 hours ago, Mike Clifford said:

Not a whole lot to go on in the article, but are they assuming that introducing more devil crayfish will create more burrows, hence more dragonflies?

Part of it.  The thing is that they take 5 years to reach adulthood from larva.  so their survival rate is not so good.  They are raising the larva in the lab then releasing them in addition they are raising the crawdads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekX5ZNbAytI

 

[Mark K]

This goes back to 2015.  I don't know how this panned out.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-sta-lockport-dragonfly-st-0705-20150703-story.html

[Mike Clifford]

It just dawned on me that I actually picked a devil crayfish out of the Kankakee River one time. I was trying to show off to a friend of mine how to pick up a crayfish properly and the thing got its claws on two of my fingers and almost chomped them. It was the size of a small lobster.