Anderson Park is the largest of the three botanical gardens managed by Townsville City Council. We have been conveniently close to it in Mundingburra for so long that we take it for granted but a couple of recent visits reminded us how pleasant it is; reminded us, too, of the Conservatory and the exotic fruit garden.
The Palmetum is one ‘campus’ of Townsville’s Botanic Gardens, the other two being Queen’s Gardens in North Ward and Anderson Park near us in Mundingburra.
The Palmetum is beside Ross River just off the main road between town and the university/hospital area. Its speciality is, obviously, palms but that means a broad variety of habitats from arid to rainforest and swamp, with a correspondingly broad range of insects and birds. Here are four of the ten or more (I haven’t yet sorted them all out) species of dragonflies and damselflies I photographed in one slow walk around the lagoon yesterday.
Dragonfly: Graphic Flutterer, Rhyothemis graphipteraShy dragonfly: Twister, Tholymis tillarga, hanging amongst grass seed-headsDragonfly: Black-headed Skimmer, Crocothemis nigrifronsDamselfly: Ceriagrion aeruginosum, Redtail (this is a male – females are greenish)
Dragons and damsels are closely related, all grouped together in Odonata, but damselflies are mostly smaller than dragonflies so the last image you see here is all the pixels I’ve got, while clicking on any of the others will get you a bigger image.