Ground Skimmer

Description:

Libellulidae; Diplacodes; Diplacodes trivialis (Rambur, 1842). On comparing my pictures to those in Wikipedia, it can be seen that the D. trivialis shown here is a young female. I find this species confusing when it comes to differentiating between males and females. My understanding of what I have read, in Wikipedia, is that females start out with a mainly yellow colour which becomes blue with pruinescence as they grow older. Males, on the other hand start out blue and develop pruinescence with ageing. Wiki shows a picture of a male and a picture of a female above their classification table. These pictures show a blue male and a yellow female. Up to this point, I have no problem, it is all quite clear. Then comes my problem. Wiki have a Photo Gallery under the Description and Habitat box. In the Gallery, they show a "female without pruinescence" and it is yellow. beside it there is a picture of a "female with pruinescence" and it is blue with a dusting of white. This all makes sense. The yellow one is young and the blue one (with white pruinescence) is old. Piece of cake. Got it. No problem. But just a minute, what are the two pictures above those females I have just mentioned. The one on the left is captioned "Adult male". Well, it is blue and pruinosed. So, again OK, but the picture on the right which is captioned "Young male without pruinescence showing the white patch at the base of his hindwings". Now I have to stop and think what have I misread here? So I go over it again, twice. Nope its not there. What I am talking about is the fact that the "young male" in the photo is yellow. Now, I have to ask myself "Where, in the name of goodness, did that come from?". Young males being yellow is not mentioned anywhere in that article. The "introductory" pictures of male and female above the classification table are blue (without pruinescence) for the (presumably young) male and yellow for the (presumably young) female. That is clear and easy to understand. So, where did the yellow male suddenly come from? Are we supposed to guess? Ever since I first saw Wiki, I have looked up to it as being a solid, reliable and free source of educational information, but this is not worthy of our trust. If it confuses me, it must also confuse others and that is not good. Come on Wiki, you can do better than that.

Habitat:

This young, yellow and not yet blue or pruinosed Ground Skimmer was spotted in our front garden this afternoon, settling down for the night on the tip of a leaf. How do I know it was settling down for the night? Well, I took my pictures at around 5:30 pm (It doesn't normally get dark until about 6:30 pm at this time of year, but today it was very cloudy with many rain showers and it was becoming dark early) and as I was taking the photos, I thought it must be finding a roost for the night. However, it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what I observe. So, about 5 minutes ago, just before 10:00 pm. I stopped typing my spotting and went out to my front garden with a flashlight and checked. There it was, still perched on the leaf. I don't think I need to go out later to check again. So I can post my spotting now.

Notes:

Apologies to everyone for being so facetious in this spotting. I just become infuriated when "experts" turn out such poor quality stuff for us to read. A few typos are acceptable, but completely erroneous work just causes obfuscation. When we are all trying to learn and help each other, we don't need that.