A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Dorocordulia libera
A metallic-looking dragonfly with iridescent eyes and a funny-shaped tail (club tail?)
On plants along a mowed trail leading away from Lake Emma. Close to a fresh water lake and woods
Love their flashing green eyes and bell-shaped tail end.
Thank you so much for helping me identify this gorgeous dragonfly, Gordon Dietzman!! I'm a little confused though...is it a "racket-tailed" or a club-tailed? For some reason club-tailed came to mind when I posted these but the link you found looks exactly like this dragonfly. Right?!! I'm learning the hard way. I've found many amazing bugs only to find out that I needed to get shots from the front, back or side after the fact. Now I try to get every angle possible before my subject flies away. :-)))
These look like the baskettails, with those large swellings on the end of the abdomen. This often causes people to search the wrong family for an ID. In our area, the definitive ID characteristic is the uneven yellow stripe on the swelling directly behind the wings--technically segment three of the abdomen. You can see this stripe best in photos 3 and 4--a good example of the value of taking photos of an unknown subject from different angles. Nice job!
Spotted on Jun 25, 2013
Submitted on Feb 16, 2014
+2
