Sympetrum meridionale (Southern Darter)

Another red-bodied (♂) Sympetrum. Unusually, I bumped into the fenales and took a while to find the males. The females, particularly, are prone to infestation by mites which look like small, bright red spheres on their wings.

ID Notes

  • quite plain side of thorax, dull light tan with only very thin black sutures
  • ♂ – orange-red abdomen, with very little (sometimes no) black markings
  • ♀ – yellow abdomen
  • legs mainly yellow

male immature male female

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>