Similar Dragonflies

I remember when I first started taking pictures of wildlife, I encountered my first Widow Skimmer dragonfly and thought I was seeing another dragonfly I had learned about, the Common Whitetail. These dragonflies are about the same size, though the Widow Skimmer's wings can be a little longer. They both (in males) have a pruinose-white abdomen and have mostly translucent wings with prominent black spots.

Nowadays I know that the location of the black spots on the wings are a significant difference, and that the white on the edges of the Widow Skimmer's black spots don't exist at all on the Common Whitetail.

These dragonflies are fairly closely related, and both used to be in the Libellula genus before the Common Whitetail was reclassified into the Plathemis genus. (This sort of reclassification happens way more often than you might think, as we're constantly learning more about the flora and fauna around us.)

Here's a Widow Skimmer, similar to who I saw those years ago.

Widow Skimmer (not a Common Whitetail)
July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 148655743, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

For comparison, here's a Common Whitetail.
Common Whitetail (not a Widow Skimmer)
July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 148655741, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)




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