amypadgett's Favorites

If someone could take a good hard look at this I would appreciate it. Because of the limited yellow markings on the thorax front/top and the yellow on the sides, I'm thinking this may be a Belle's Sanddragon (Progomphus bellei).

It was also at a location where Belle's Sanddragons have been observed in the past.

The third photo where it is perched on a piece of wood shows the top of the thorax and a bit of the side the best.

So I'm not sure of my identification.

After much deliberation, I decided that Slender Bluet was the best fit. This seemed most likely due to:
Large postocular spots
Head largely pale
Thorax has limited black marks with the median strip split lengthwise by a pale stripe. The abdomen is black above and blue on S2-3.

There were five (or more) of these hugging the banks of the shallow end of our pond with one pair (show in the photo) ovipositing.

I changed my mind later because the eyes were all blue (no green on the bottom half) and S10 is blue on top.

I saw about 5 of these today in several areas. This was the first one. It was not as large as say, the Common Darner, so I looked at the darner family and the closest to this one was the Harlequin, particularly looking at the cerci.

In one of the photos, the hawk turned its head so its dark nape was visible (as opposed to the Cooper's Hawk's lighter nape). The hawk was fairly small and had a squarish tail although that is not visible.