northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a Great Blue Skimmer , or at least that's my best theory. Since the males have light blue abdomens while the females are instead brown, I believe that this is a juvenile. It certainly has the white face that's rare in our dragonflies, and has blue eyes that I'd expect to see (though the eyes are a paler blue in adults). Great Blue Skimmers are considered the largest skimmer that lives in NJ, though they're considered a little mellower than the typical skimmer. Fun fact: Great Blue Skimmers are not closely related to Great Blue Herons. 😀 June 17, 2021 at the Plainsboro Preserve Photo 141958903, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Twelve-spotted Skimmer . As you probably guessed, they are another dragonfly species in the skimmer family . They're named after their twelve black spots (3 black spots per wing). Coupled with the 2 white spots on each wing plus some basal white on the back wings, no other dragonfly around here looks like this, making the males one of the easiest dragonfly identifications around. The females look similar to this except the white spots aren't there; the wings are clear there instead. Since both males and females have the 12 black spots, you could argue that this is one of the few dragonfly common names influenced by the appearance of the female. (Based solely on the male, you could call it a Twenty-two-spotted Skimmer.) Though the white spots indicate this is a male, I see no pruinose on the tail, so I believe this is a young male. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Meet a male  Blue Dasher Dragonfly . Tomorrow I'll show you a female. Like many other dragonflies in my area, they are also in the skimmer family . (Remember that this includes dragonflies like the pondhawks and meadowhawks in addition to ones actually named skimmers. At the Skimmer Family reunion, little nametags would no doubt be helpful because there's too many of these guys to remember them all.) On the other hand, there's no other dragonfly species in their genus, so the Blue Dasher has no really close relatives. The turquoise eyes and light blue tail make these guys fairly distinctive-looking. Like with many male dragonflies, the tail starts out a different color but develops a pruinescent waxy coating as they age. In Blue Dashers (and Eastern Pondhawks), the pruinescence is light blue, but in Common Whitetails and Widow Skimmers it is white. You can still see some of the original dark-blue tail color at the end of the tail of this individual. The other name for thi...