Mexico was the host of the 6th WDA Symposium of Odonatology, and I had the pleasure to attend this meeting. The meeting took place in the city of Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz, between the 7th and the 12th of June 2009. The World Dragonfly Association (WDA) is an organisation that strives to raise the general awareness of odonates and their natural habitates, and its has members from all over the world. This page will describe my visit to Mexico, the places I went to, and the odonates I saw. The description is picture-heavy, though I've split it up in three pages. Links to the next pages: Poster created by Julio César Monteros, Instituto de Biologia, UNAM. 5th of June 2009 I landed in Mexico City friday the 5th of June and soon after got my small Dodge rental car at about 6 P.M. My plan was to visit the Teotihuacan historical site just north of the city, before heading to the congress starting the 7th in Xalapa. I had planned my driving northwards out of the city by studying google-earth, but soon learned that the plan had failed. I found myself driving around the city, without any clue of where north were. I did find a 24H Wallmart and picked up maps of the city and the country, and had a guy pointing out where I exactly was. That turned out to be south of the city center, completely opposite to my planned direction. After endless driving through the city's heavy trafic, I reached the highways towards the north, but not exactly the one leading to Teotihuacan. Leaving that wrong highway before I strayed too far north, I found a small hotel and ended up having dinner on the corner of the street. Small tacos and a large beer, which turned out to be a 1.2 liter bottle. That gave me a good night of sleep.

My route in Mexico, from the 5th to the 22nd of June 2009. Mexico is a huge country, and I did not travel that far. 1: Mexico City and Teotihuacan historical site. 2: The city Xalapa in the state Veracruz, and the historical site El Tajin north of it. 3: The City Catemaco, and the nature area Los Tuxlos north of it. 4: Driving through the state Oaxaca. 5: Cuernavaca in Morelos, and the rivers south of it. 6/6-09 The Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan, and the Avenue of the Dead leading to it. Photo taken from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. 6/6-09 Looking down along the Avenue of the Dead, from half way up on the Pyramid of the moon.

The Pyramid of the Sun seen from the Pyramid of the Moon. In the foreground some of the 12 Pyramids surrounding the Plaza of the Moon. 6/6-05 A tele photo of the top of the huge Pyramid of the Sun. One of the largest pyramids in the world. 6/6-05 Three generations at the small family owned hotel, showing me Mexican hospitality at its very best.

6th of June The next morning I went back towards the city, to make a westwards drive towards Teotihuacan on the right highway. It turned out to be a long drive in the northern suburbs of the city, until i finally reached Teotihuacan. It was a great experience to see the pyramids at the site, dominated by the large Pyramid of the Sun, and the smaller Pyramid of the Moon. After seeing the pyramides my next planned stop was the congress in Xalapa, where there was a welcome reception the following day. I made a drive eastwards towards Xalapa, following some smaller roads, not taking the direct route. At one point I crossed a small river, stopped and had a look at the odonata fauna there. I found several different looking damselflies, and thought I already had photographed several species. The next day I showed the photos to Enrique González-Soriano, one of the organisers of the congress, and realised that the damselflies were all of the same species. I found a small family owned auto-hotel north of the city Apizaco in Tlaxcala. First I was welcomed by an old man who showed me the room above the garage. Then a younger man arrived, welcomed me and gave me his hand. Now I don't speak a single word of Spanish, and the two men clearly did not understand my English. But then the younger man ran upstairs and brought back with him his 22 year old son, who spoke some English. Now I knew what to pay for the room, and the young lad asked me if I needed something in a store. He walked with me to the store, and after he saw the few things I needed, he said: Let me pay for this. Now I spent the evening together with father, son, and grandfather, talking about Mexico and Denmark and browsing subjects on the internet. They really made me feel at home, and gave me a glimpse of Mexican hospitality.

6/6-09 A male Hesperagrion heterodoxum at a small river south of Ahuazotepec, Puebla, Mexico. 6/6-09 A female Hesperagrion heterodoxum.

6/6-09 An immature male of the species, by many considered the most colourful damselfly in USA, where it also occurs in the south. 6/6-09 The immature female.

7th of June This day was a driving day, but I had plenty of time and hoped to see some odonates if I passed a river on the road. It turned out though that I was passing though a rather arid area, so I did not see a single odonate that day. I had a pleasent drive though, seeing what I believe is the highest mountain of Mexico in the distance, Pico de Orizaba reaching 5636 meters above sea level. I also drove through low mountain ranges with beautiful vegetation and forest at lower altitudes. I did reach Xalapa, and this time my google-earth browsing at home before leaving Denmark, was sufficient to reach my booked hotel in the first attempt. Xalapa is a city of nearly one million inhabitants, so every possabillity of getting lost was present. I would now spend the next six nights in a four star hotel, among people from many parts of the world, sharing with me the interest of dragonflies and damselflies. There was already some congress attendees at the Hotel when I arrived a little pass noon, including Enrique, the organiser I mentioned in the 6th of June text. I unpacked in my hotel room, and went downstairs in the reception area, where the registration for the congress would also take place. There was a lot of people to meet and talk to. We were a group of attendees that took Enrique's and my car to a resturant outside town, to have a dinner besides a small river. I had Mike May and Günther Theischinger and their wives with me in the car, and we had a lot of fun talking about politics and how to drive a car abroad. I managed to stall the car on a steep road, and give my view on the war on terror. We had a nice dinner, but Günther had to wait a very long time for his steak, which turned out to be pork when it finally arrived. Back in the hotel it was reception time, and Alex Córdoba-Aguilar welcomed us all, apreciating that we had not got discouraged by the H1N1 media hysteria. We had a lot of wine and snacks, a lot of conversations, and I ended up down in the restaurant having beers with a small group.

7/6-09 Mexico's highest mountain, Pico de Orizaba, could be seen from a long distance, on my way eastwards towards Xalapa. 7/6-09 Two of the organizers of the congress, Rodolfo Novelo-Gutiérrez (left) and Alex Córdoba-Aguilar. 7/6-09 Dinner at a restaurant beside a small river, just outside Xalapa.

8/6-09 Opening of the congress in Xalapa. 9/6-09 Outside in the botanical garden, this undescribed species from the genus Micrathyria was flying over a pond. The male shown here used a prominent perching position on a leaf, watching out for females.

8th of June Next morning I had a slight headache, revealing that I'm not really used to drinking alcohol. Those who stayed at the hotel, had a nice start to the day there with breakfast, paid by daily tickets which we were given when signing in at the hotel. Then all got onto the bus and off we went to the Botanical Garden of Xalapa, where the congress took place. The congress was four days of presentations on odonates, with a day in between, where the bus took us up north to a historical site named El Tajin. After these five days there would be a post-congress tour lasting three days. The congress started with some formal stuff, followed by Mike Parr giving a talk about Philip S. Corbet, one of the greatest odonatologist of all time, and former president of WDA, who passed away last year. Then there were an invited talk by M. J. Samways, followed by shorter talks from other talks by other odonatologist. This first day we were a small group that stayed at the botanical garden for lunch in the employee cantina, but the following days lunch the cantina served lunch for us just beside the auditorium. Talks continued past 6 P.M. before the bus arrived to bring us back to our hotel. I had dinner at the hotel with some of the other attendees, and a glass of wine in the reception area, talking with some of the German odonatologists.

9th of June In the Botanical Garden just outside the auditorium, there were some small ponds with a few species of dragonflies. Some of the attendees, including me, would spend some time in the garden photographing odonates. It came as a real surprise to me, when Enrique came and told us that the species of Micrathyria we were photographing, was undescribed. I also managed to photograph some robberflies with prey in the garden. The sessions of the congress this day, started out with Mark Forbes giving a talk on Ecological parasitology of odonates. Further presentations continued thoughout the day, ending with shorter presentations of the posters that had been put up outside the auditorium. Picture right: 9/6-08 This male Argia anceps obviously did not want me to get a normal picture of his head. Just as I was ready lying on the ground, he raised up on his fore and middle legs, and started cleaning his abdomen with the hind legs. Here is a picture of the male seen from the side.

9/6-09 Undescribed Micrathyria sp during oviposition. Instead of a wild bouncing up and down, what I usually see among European Libelluids, this female just lowered her abdomen gently, dropping an egg on top of the wet leaves.

10/6-09 Odonatologists among the ancient structures at El Tajin. 10/6-09 The most famous pyramid at El Tajin. It is far from the size of the pyramids of Teotihuacan, but it surely is a more beautiful and handsome structure. 10/6-09 Waiting for the traditional indian stunt to commence, keeping cool in the shade.

10th of June This day was the cultural part of the congress, where a bus would drive us all to the historical site El Tajin, an ancient city located further up north in the state Veracruz, not far from the coast, the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the mountains north of Xalapa, the bus first took us east to the coast, and the up along the coast to El Tajin. The site is rather big, with a lot of ancient pyramids and other structures. The first time we got off the bus, I was surprised by the heat and humidity that hit us. We came from Xalapa placed higher in elevation and longer from the humid sea, and down to sea level by the coast. At that time I was not sure if I would feel comfortable staying in conditions like those for several days. And that was actually the plan after the congress ended in Xalapa, to go down to lower altitudes looking for dragonflies. Reaching El Tajin we spent two and a half hour walking at the beatiful site, admiring and photographing. The site has seen a lot of restauration during the 20th century, to be in this fine state today. It has been abandoned and more or less complete overgrown by vegetation for centuries. There was hardly any shade to be found, but I think everybody enjoyed the visit to the site. I bet I was not the only one sweating. Before we left again, Alex arranged a small performance by the local indians. A traditional stunt done by five men, four men suspended by a rope around the legs, circling around a pole, starting at the top and ending down on the ground, while the fifth man controls the stunt from the top.

10/6-09 One of the indians collected small donations, in return for the performance.

10/6-09 The action underway, with the four young men flying fearlessly through the air.

We got back on the bus, and drove out to the coast again for our second destination on this trip. We were to have a traditional dinner in the garden of the wife of Alex's parents. This was some relaxing couple of hours, sitting in the shade and enjoying some fine food. The garden was surrounded by an arsenal of cages with chickens of all sizes and colours, and they occasionally gave out loud sounds, that blended well with the conversations and laugther at the tables. After the dinner a small group decided to have a look at the ocean, taking the short walk just across the coastal road. We still had a long drive in the bus, before we would reach Xalapa, and I think most fell asleep during that drive. We were back at the hotel way past 10 P.M. Picture left: 10/6-09 The fine dinner was crowned by the hosts serving a fine Tequila. I really enjoyd the taste of this.

10/6-09 Relaxation in the garden after the dinner. Some of the cages with chickens are seen in the background.

10/6-09 Andreas Martens (left) and John Abbott, two fine odonatologist from Germany and Texas.

11th of June Back in Xalapa the congress now continued with a very interesting talk by Rosser W. Garrison. He gave an overview of the new world Zygoptera, going through all the genera, and promised that his book on this subject would appear late 2010. This should be a fine complement to the 2006 book on the new world Anisoptera, a book which Rosser had brought a few copies of with him, and which I was able to purchase. The day ended with a meeting on mapping of the Neotropic Odonata fauna. It was discussed how to set up a database that everyone would contribute to with data. During the days there were a lot of interesting presentations, but I've only mentioned the invited talks, which each lasted an hour. The 20 minutes talks included super slow motion videos of dragonflies catching prey in a labotory, and similar videos of an Asian species in flight at its habitate, showing different kinds of flight style. There were several talks on the subject of variation in wing coloration of male Calopterygidae species and its correlation with mating succes etc.

11/6-09 A damselfly from the family Pseudostigmatidae, a family often named Forest Giants. The male shown is a Mecistogaster modesta.

11/6-09 A male Remartinia luteipennis florida taking a patroling flight over the ponds in the botanical garden. Earlier that same day I saw the female there too.

11/6-09 The dragonflies behaved rather civilized in the garden, which could not be said about the Robberflies. To me the prey look like a Wasp.

11/6-09 A look down through the Botanical Garden of Xalapa, with the auditorium in the background.

11/6-09 Inside the auditorium, part of the Ecological Institute of Xalapa. Outside we were served coffee, water, mango and bisquits.

12/6-09 A male Acanthagrion quadratum in the botanical garden, Xalapa. 12/6-09 A female Brechmorhoga sp perched in the shade close to the city Xico, south of Xalapa. At the same site I also got a couple of pictures of female Argia sp, here a mature female and here an immature female.

12th of June This last day of the conference was spent on displaying posters, communicating the scientific work done on dragonflies around the world. At noon everybody gathered outside the auditorium, to have a group picture taken of all the attendees of the congress. I was appointed the task of being the photographer. It should be noted though that several people are missing from the group photo shown below, naturally myself, but also the Dutch delegation who probably was out birdwatching. I did not participate in the closing ceremony of the congress, as I went out looking for dragonflies close to the city Xico south of Xalapa, right after lunch. In the evening we had the congress dinner in the hotel in Xalapa, and this was the official end of the congress. After the dinner we were maybe 20 people who went out dancing at a bar in Xalapa. I had a lot of Tequila and learnt some latin steps on the dancefloor. There was a post congress tour to take place the next three days, and I participated in that too. Read about my continued travel on page 2 and 3.

12/6-09

The group photo taken outside in the Botanical Garden.

12/6-09 Photo from the congress dinner.

11/6-09 Photo from the congress dinner.

Links to the next pages: