| White-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum albistylum (Sélys, 1848)) |
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Scientific name: Orthetrum albistylum (Sélys, 1848) Common name: White-tailed Skimmer French name: Orthetrum à stylets blancs Order: Odonata Suborder: Anisoptera Family: Libellulidae Wingspan: 79 mm Biotope: Ponds, lakes, oxbow lakes. Geographic area: Southern Europe, southern half of France, missing in the Iberian Peninsula and in Italy. Its range extends eastwards in Asia as far as China and Japan. Flight time: Late May to September. |
White-tailed Skimmer males have a blue body with a black abdomen tip. They are very similar to Orthetrum cancellatum and differ by a more slender abdomen and whitish anal appendages (but sometimes black). Mature males colour turns to more whitish and the separation between the blue area and the black area is sharper. There are whitish marks on the lateral and upper sides of the thorax. The females' abdomen is yellow with black lines like Orthetrum cancellatum. They differ by the shape of the longitudinal black lines which are curved like bracket characters and by the white colour of the S10 segment and anal appendages. |
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White marks on the upper side of the thorax, black stripes curved like bracket characters, white S10 segment, this one is a female White-tailed Skimmer. |
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Here is a male with black anal appendages. |
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Here is another male photographed in the immediate vicinity of the previous one. This time the anal appendages are white (and my photo is a little blurred). |
André Bon January 2023