Red Veined or Common Darter? (1 Viewer)

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Brian Dunning

Well-known member

• Sep 13, 2012

• #1

I'm struggling a bit with this one. As it's in-flight, I can't detect the red veins on the wings or the yellow hind-wing patch but the lower part of the eyes definitely look greyish blue which would make it Red Veined. Taken in the Loire valley, France, yesterday. Any help appreciated!!

The second image is of a female at the same location but I'm much less certain about this. Again, any help on ID would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

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Phil Bishop

Well-known member

• Sep 13, 2012

• #2

Dont think the male is a Red veined, the lower eye looks more yellowish to me.

 

pdwinter

Paul Winter

• Sep 13, 2012

• #3

Hi Brian

The red one is a Common Darter -browny red top half of eye with definitely not blue undersides; no black down side of frons; red pterostigmas rather than yellowish; Common Darter pattern to thorax side; you would also be able to see the yellow wing bases and red veins in such a sharp shot.

Have a look at this page.
http://www.dragonflypix.com/speciespages/sympetrum_fonscolombii.html

I'm not sure about the other one - other than it's not a RVD. The face of RVD is very distinctive - the attached pics are of a young male and a teneral female that had just left the emergence pool

 

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Brian Dunning

Well-known member

• Sep 13, 2012

• #4

Once again, I'm in your debt again, Paul! Many thanks.

 

Swindon Addick

Registered User

Supporter

• Sep 13, 2012

• #5

The last time I saw a strange-looking female darter which I couldn't identify at the time, she turned out to be a keeled skimmer. I can't find any images from a similar angle to your photo, but the wings look good for that species - hint of yellow at the front, pale pterostigma, wings held distinctly forwards. Do you have any sort of image of the abdomen?

 

pdwinter

Paul Winter

• Sep 13, 2012

• #6

Swindon Addick said:

The last time I saw a strange-looking female darter which I couldn't identify at the time, she turned out to be a keeled skimmer. I can't find any images from a similar angle to your photo, but the wings look good for that species - hint of yellow at the front, pale pterostigma, wings held distinctly forwards. Do you have any sort of image of the abdomen?

Click to expand...

A good way to tell Sympetrum from Orthetrum is the number of Ax in the forewing (usually 6 1/2 in sympetrum 8 1/2 or more in Orthetrum - about 11 or 12 in Keeled Skimmer) and that the one closest to the node is a 1/2 in Sympetrum and whole in Orthetrum. You can see that the Ax in the left wing closest to the node is 1/2 and that there aren't very many of them (unfortunately 3 are hidden from view).

The more I look at it the more it looks to me like Vagrant Darter (S. vulgatum) but I wouldn't bet my house on it.

 

Swindon Addick

Registered User

Supporter

• Sep 14, 2012

• #7

Thanks for that. I still find the idea of looking at wing structure a bit intimidating and have never really tried it, but based on your comment I dug out a photo of the keeled skimmer and sure enough the shape and number of cells in that part of the wing is very different. Another step towards trying to get the hang of this ID business!

 

RoyW

Well-known member

• Sep 14, 2012

• #8

I would tend to favour Southern Darter for the second photo - but I don't think that it can be identified with any certainty from what we can see.

If there aren't any other photos that might help, I would suggest that the identification should be left at genus level.