Dragonflies from Düsseldorf, Germany (1 Viewer)

[David_]

Hi,

I took the photos last year at nature reserve at the border of Düsseldorf. Initially I thought first one was Sympetrum striolatum or maybe S. vulgatum (but already in field I had the feeling that it somehow didn't look quite right). For the second one I thought it was a female S. striolatum. I posted the photos on iNaturalist and received IDs as S. depressiusculum for the first and S. meridionale for the second (where there are just a few records in the whole state of Nortrine-Westfalia) for the second. What do you think? The people giving the IDs seem to be quite knowledgeable with Odonata.
Especially S. meridionale would be quite a surprising find (and a lifer 😉)


S. depressiusculum?


S. meridionale?

 

[David_]

Forgot to mention: all photos taken on August 15th 2021

 

[pdwinter]

The female looks like Sympetrum meridionale to me - a lot of yellow on the legs and a lack of black markings except for a small dot on the side of the thorax.

I don't have the field experience of S. depressiusculum to comment.

 

[David_]

Thank you.
I will report the observations to the odonata of North-Rhine Westfalia study group which maintains an online atlas of the odonata of the state.

 

[Xenospiza]

S. depressiusculum would be a surprise as it is limited to the Dülmener Fischteiche in NRW, but there were observations in quite a few curious locations in the Netherlands last year. There is litte to go on these pictures, but I miss the usually obvious bicoloured eyes.

 

[David_]

S. depressiusculum would be a surprise as it is limited to the Dülmener Fischteiche in NRW, but there were observations in quite a few curious locations in the Netherlands last year. There is litte to go on these pictures, but I miss the usually obvious bicoloured eyes.

Thanks for pointing that out.
Initially I only took a short look the distribution of S. depressiusculum and didn't notice that basically all records outside of Hausdülmen are at least 60 years old. So after reading the detailed distribution notes (Atlas der Libellen Nordrhein-Westfalens) I think it's unlikely that it's S. depressiusculum (even though S. meridionale was unlikely at that location as well). The quality of the photos is probably not helping as well.