Ground-loving dragonflies, western Kenya, October (1 Viewer)

Grateful for any assistance with ID of following individuals.

I suspect these represent a single species, with the bluish ones being the males, but I could be wrong.

Thanks

Guy

Part 2

More images...

They are either Brachythemis leucosticta (Southern Banded Groundling) or Brachythemis impartita (Northern Banded Groundling)

The first two are females and the others are males - the darker ones being older.

Thank you, Paul.

Guy

In the paper separating the species Dijkstra & Matushkina write "None of the male characters applied well to females and no reliable distinction for that sex was found"... so we'll have to ignore the females.

In the last male pic the veins behind the pterostigma are certainly dark - as are the veins in all the other males as far as I can see. This is a pro leucosticta feature. However the borders of the pterostigma in the penultimate image aappear pale proximally (i.e. nearer the wing band) which is a pro impartita feature.

I have zero field experience of leucosticta so don't have any of my own photos I can use for comparison.

I would suggest e-mailing the images to KD Dijkstra (KD.Dijkstra AT naturalis.nl) together with the location information and I'm sure he'll ID them for you - he has always been helpful.

Attached the image of the two species in the Dijkstra & Matushkina paper

I have done just that.

Many thanks.

Guy