Common Whitetail
| in: Nature photos
A beautiful specimen of a female Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), taken yesterday at Sandy Point State Park:
More detailed, original image here. The females can be distinguished by having three black patches on their wings, while the males only have one, larger patch. This page shows many examples of the different sexes.
The mature males of this species have a brilliant bluish-white abdomen, an example of pruinescence1, which they use to threaten other males who enter their territory.
- A waxy secretion onto the insect’s cuticle which covers up the cuticle’s color. This is often bluish white. [↩]
Posted: 03 Aug 2008 10:11 pm by Samuel Huckins 0 comments