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Help with ID: Darter? (1 Viewer)

BillN

BillN

Well-known member
I get more and more confused IDing Dragonflies

Looks like an Old, female Darter to me, maybe a Ruddy ……but Green eyes and I know that there is a very small white tip, but it does not look like the White-tailed Skimmers that I have seen …….. it seems to have a "white face" but that must just be how it is

seen SW France today

sorry about the quality of the 2nd image it did not stay around very long

experts will be along, thanks
 

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Bill, if you've got Dijkstra, then pages 31-35 show you how to separate skimmers (Orthetrum) and darters (Sympetrum). Skimmers have quite a lot (c.15 for Black-tailed) of Ax (antenodal crossveins) whereas darters have 8 or fewer.
 
pdwinter said:
Bill, if you've got Dijkstra, then pages 31-35 show you how to separate skimmers (Orthetrum) and darters (Sympetrum). Skimmers have quite a lot (c.15 for Black-tailed) of Ax (antenodal crossveins) whereas darters have 8 or fewer.
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul…… I keep looking at Dijkstra but it takes a lot of digging to identify the differences ……… as they tend to use the Latin names in the text when pointing out features rather than the common names….. so it's a matter of going backwards and forwards …..the common names are much easier to remember

I'm not sure of the life cycle of Dragonflies - do they change, (i.e. look different, like Gulls!!!!), during the season and from 1yr old to the next year
 
BillN said:
I'm not sure of the life cycle of Dragonflies - do they change, (i.e. look different, like Gulls!!!!), during the season and from 1yr old to the next year
Click to expand...

Dragonflies all start as eggs, the egg hatches into a larva - sometimes very soon after laying and sometimes the following spring - and then the larva takes from a few months (Red-veined Darter) to e.g. four years (Brown Hawker) to develop. The adult Dragonfly then emerges and may live a couple of weeks or so (damselflies) or up to a couple of months or more (dragonflies).

They do change quite a lot from tenerals to mature adults (and this is illustrated in fieldguides although not all the intermediate stages along the way otherwise the book would be too big and heavy to be a fieldguide)
(e.g. see my yesterday's blog entry for male Keeled Skimmer over time.

The site I recommend on ID is usually Odonates costarmoricains which is Ok if you know French - they have pics of the dragonflies from teneral through to mature adults.

Hope that helps
 
pdwinter said:
Dragonflies all start as eggs, the egg hatches into a larva - sometimes very soon after laying and sometimes the following spring - and then the larva takes from a few months (Red-veined Darter) to e.g. four years (Brown Hawker) to develop. The adult Dragonfly then emerges and may live a couple of weeks or so (damselflies) or up to a couple of months or more (dragonflies).

They do change quite a lot from tenerals to mature adults (and this is illustrated in fieldguides although not all the intermediate stages along the way otherwise the book would be too big and heavy to be a fieldguide)
(e.g. see my yesterday's blog entry for male Keeled Skimmer over time.

The site I recommend on ID is usually Odonates costarmoricains which is Ok if you know French - they have pics of the dragonflies from teneral through to mature adults.

Hope that helps
Click to expand...

Merci
 
pdwinter said:
Bill, if you've got Dijkstra, then pages 31-35 show you how to separate skimmers (Orthetrum) and darters (Sympetrum). Skimmers have quite a lot (c.15 for Black-tailed) of Ax (antenodal crossveins) whereas darters have 8 or fewer.
Click to expand...

Paul - looking through Pages 31 to 35 - very useful as you suggested - just got to get my head around the Latin names
 
One of the main (perceived) problems with Latin names is feeling confident pronouncing them. Sites such as http://www.makeham.org/latin.shtml will give you a useful guide (in a dragonfly context). Since old Latin is long gone, and we can't be absolutely sure of pronounciations, there is however no real right or wrong. So just jump in - once you can put a sound to a word, then the whole thing gets a lot easier (e.g. even a 6-year old can deal with Tyrannosaurus rex!).
 
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