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Erythemis simplicicollis
Green Dragonfly with crooked abdomen.
Found in our vegetable garden.
I've spotted this species before. They are abundant in our yard. But the crooked abdomen caught my attention. A birth defect? Injury? Or?
Spotted on Sep 5, 2022
Submitted on Oct 20, 2022
9 Comments
Hi Tom,
I have done a little more searching and I am reasonably sure that my Dragonfly is a Gynacantha sp. I am still not sure of the sex, but I think it is a female. I have edited my spotting accordingly. However, I am going to have to spend some more time on it before I can say for sure. John
I think you would see the light gentalia on a immature male much more clearly:
Female: https://www.alamy.com/eastern-pondhawk-e...
Young male: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1262568
I don't know the sex or even the species, Tom. But I will find out because this is becoming more interesting by the minute. John.
I didn't mention the sex of this individual. The adult males are blue. The adult females are are green and immatures of both sex's are green. I perceived this individual as an immature male but could easily be wrong.
Do you know the sex of your dragonfly John?
Hi Arne,
that is very interesting and I think it could be the case with my spotting, but I can't find any good information about how the female might look after egg laying. Can you recommend a website I could look at ? John B.
Or right after the female has released eggs?
Hi Tom, sorry, I should have told you. I managed to post the spotting shortly after my comment. You can find it at https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/18...
John.
Thanks John. Looking forward to your post. Tom
I'm not sure about the crooked abdomen of your dragonfly, but as soon as I saw it, I realised that I had seen something similar, a few months back. So, I looked through my stuff and found it. I have 3 photos of one that I did not send to Project Noah (I think it was because I couldn't identify it and put it aside for another day). It is not quite so deformed as your specimen, but I will post it on PN this evening in case you might want to have a look. I know it is not the kind of information you are looking for, but it might just help to confirm that such "conditions" are out there. John B.