Carolina Saddlebags

Here's someone I don't think I've seen before, or if I did I was unable to get a picture of it. The latter is probably more likely, since my field guide says the Carolina Saddlebags is "common", and also mentions that saddlebags don't perch much but instead spend a lot of time zipping around in the air. Despite zipping around, these largish bright red dragonflies are likely to get your attention.

They get the "saddlebags" part of their name from the large (in this case red) basal spot on the hind wings, which made it look like (to someone familiar with horses) the dragonfly had saddlebags. (In actuality dragonflies have few possessions, and thus no need for a saddlebag with which to carry them.)

There is a very similar saddlebags dragonfly, the Red Saddlebags, that's occasionally seen in the southern tip of New Jersey. Even though this dragonfly would be out of range in Hillsborough, there are reasons to believe this is the Carolina Saddlebags instead. You should be able to see some bluish-purple on the face of this dragonfly which is a field mark for the Carolina Saddlebags; the Red Saddlebags has a red face instead. Here's a more extensive description of the differences.

When I saw this dragonfly my 1st thought was that it was a Calico Pennant, a red dragonfly with a similar large basal spot on the hind wings, but there are differences. You can see black-and-red towards the end of the abdomen of the Carolina Saddlebags, but on the Calico Pennant the abdomen would be red-and-black pretty much the whole way. And on the Calico Pennant there should be a couple other smaller spots on the wings, not just the large basal spot. This presumably means some non-saddlebags dragonflies will have basal spots similar to saddlebags dragonflies.

I see quite a few large dark dragonflies that never (seem to) land; I suspect that some of these are another saddlebags dragonfly, the Black Saddlebags. Hopefully one of them lands near me eventually and I get to take a picture.

June 8, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 209834964, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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