ID help (1 Viewer)

[Surreybirder]

I saw an exuvia on a lily pad on our garden pond. When I fished it out, I could see that the dragonfly had emerged, although the split was not at all noticeable. I was surprised as I don't think I've ever seen a dragonfly emerge on a floating leaf before.
I measured the case and it was 60mms - so I'm thinking possibly an emperor?
I took a photo alongside another exuvia which was on an iris frond. This one is much smaller and might, perhaps be a Sympetrum sp.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Swindon Addick]

Looks good for Emperor. The very long labial mask is a good hint of either Emperor or Southern Hawker, and I think I can see long spines on the abdominal segments. Also the eyes are a rather different shape to hawkers. In the first photo it's on its back so I'd guess it fell there from some tall plant or similar, after emergence was over.

The smaller one looks like a chaser or skimmer to me. There are several options that are reasonably common in garden ponds and I'm not much good at ID of exuviae - if I suggested a species ID I'd be guessing.

 

[Surreybirder]

Looks good for Emperor. The very long labial mask is a good hint of either Emperor or Southern Hawker, and I think I can see long spines on the abdominal segments. Also the eyes are a rather different shape to hawkers. In the first photo it's on its back so I'd guess it fell there from some tall plant or similar, after emergence was over.

That sounds plausible - it could have been near the top of one of the irises or rushes and blown down. Thanks for your input. We get a lot of common darters so that would, I think, be a likely candidate for the other one. A recent BB Chaser case was significantly larger.