Common Whitetail and Widow Skimmer

Here are a couple dragonflies I've talked about before, a Common Whitetail (upper left) and a Widow Skimmer (lower right), each perched next to one another overlooking a pond. They're both robust-looking dragonflies, and can look a little similar when the Widow Skimmer has more pruinose and thus has a while abdomen. (I suspect the Widow Skimmer is a little on the young side, and will eventually look whiter.)

My recollection is that on this day there were a lot of dragonflies out there, mostly males flying back and forth, presumably trying to carve out an area that females will find appealing. But all that flying uses up energy, and so it's not uncommon for them to conserve energy by finding a perch where they can survey their territory.

Though these guys are competitors for food, being separate species they don't compete for mates. Most of their aggression is spent on harassing/intimidating males of their own species, though occasionally they appear to have inter-species aerial dogfights. I'm not sure whether those are cases of mistaken identity or whether someone else had their favorite perching spot.

Dragonfly interactions remind me of intra-species and inter-species interactions of birds at bird feeders. There's an awful lot of activity, there's probably a loose "pecking order", some of them probably look at others of them as potential prey, some view others as rivals, and I'm probably failing to understand most of the interactions.

June 15, 2022 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 210217644, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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