Eastern Pondhawks

Here are a couple Eastern Pondhawks I met. I'm posting them together to show the way sexual dimorphism manifests itself in this skimmer dragonfly species. They are about the same size and with mostly transparent but veiny wings. But while the body of the females is bright green other than the black stripes on the tail, the males are a light, powdery blue.

Note that I called them skimmer dragonflies; this means they're in the same family as the Widow Skimmers I've shown earlier.

The Eastern Pondhawk is considered a fairly aggressive dragonfly in that it will attempt to prey on most insects its own size and smaller, including other odonates (odes for short, and consisting of dragonflies and damselflies).

Note that both these pondhawks were found at Duke Farms on the same day, the pictures were taken a while apart, and there's no reason to believe they were a couple.

July 14 at Duke Farms

July 14 at Duke Farms




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