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| Male Black-tailled Skimmer |
Menorca has 2 Darters, 2 Skimmers and the Broad Scarlet, all of which are quite distinctive when one is looking at mature males. However many of the individuals that you will come across will be immatures and females and in the field these can be quite confusing.
Lets get the males out the way first
If the dragonfly is blue it is a male and is either a Black-tailed skimmer, pictured above, or a Keeled Skimmer, pictured below. The Black-tailed Skimmer has a black tail and the Keeled Skimmer does not. The Black-tailled Skimmer also has black pterostigma whilst the Keeled Skimmer has large yellow pterostigma.
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| Male Keeled Skimmer at Es grau |
A red dragonfly is either a Broad Scarlet, a Red-veined Darter or a Common Darter.If it is bright red with a red face and no black on legs it is a Broad Scarlet. The jizz of a Broad Scarlet is different from that of the other darters and after seeing a few it is easy to pick them out. It has a very broad flat looking abdomen and the scarlet is very intense; you don't usually have to look that closely to tell them apart. Both are in the picture shown below.
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| Red-veined darter and Broad Scarlet |
The two male Sympetrum's are harder to tell apart but the Red-veined Darter is redder than the Common Darter; the underside of its eyes are blue whilst the Common Darters are greeny; the Red-veined Darter has red veins and a more pronounced yellow patch at the base of the hindwind and the Common darter doesn't have red veins and a very small yellow hindwind patch.
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| Male Common Darter |
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| Male Red-veined Darter at Es grau |
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