An occasional blog about natural history, travel, books and writing ... and anything else that catches my attention.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Day off
Because sometimes you can get trapped by work. And spider webs.
Provisional identification: Fiery skimmer (Orthetrum villosovittatum), a libuellid dragonfly from eastern and northern Australia, New Guinea and the Moluccas. I used the keys in the dragonfly book to get to family and then resorted to pictures and individual species descriptions. Thanks to that process, I now know a lot more than I did before about the anatomy of dragonfly wings. Not enough to be confident about my ID, but enough to bore people stupid at the pub.
Reference
Theischinger, G. & Hawking, J. (2006). The complete field guide to dragonflies of Australia. Collingwood: CSIRO Publishing. 366 pp.