Juvenile Common Whitetail

Though I've talked about them a lot, this was a pretty good picture of an immature male Common Whitetail. The coloring of the thorax and abdomen looks pretty much exactly like an adult female, but the dark spots on the wings are indicative of a male - this combination is probably a solid identifier of an immature male. Since these guys only live a few weeks as adults, I suspect that he'll be getting his white "tail" (really the abdomen) pretty quickly.

Even if this guy doesn't father children (probably because something eats him before he gets the chance), he's gotten a lot further in life than most of his siblings. It's estimated that 99.9% die before emerging from their aquatic nymph stage of life.

June 17, 2021 at the Plainsboro Preserve
Photo 141958818, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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