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The Common Picture Wing dragonfly

Rhyothemis variegata

Photo by Kya
Published on Project Noah
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23.0701, 114.433

Field Notes

Description:

With warning color pattern of black and bright yellow, resemblance to butterfly and dragonfly at the same time, two pairs of wings, the fore wings' tips have a considerable translucent area where the rear ones' are relatively smaller, making the view as if the rear wings are bigger than fore ones. Gesture when perching on tip of grass leaf is similar to a dragonfly, the way it flutters the wings intermittently (fore ones up when rear ones up, and vice versa) is similar to a butterfly.

Habitat:

Grassland

Notes:

Photo shot in Jin-shan-hu park (金山湖公园, lit. Golden-mountain-lake park) of Huizhou city, Guangdong in a torrid sunny day shortly after a shower. This fairy was super-active that it made me uneasy to hold the camera and track its flying traces so I switched the camera to "sport/quick snatch mode". It cost me nearly half an hour to take these pictures, and it rarely stopped and anchored on the grass leaf. Since it resembles to butterfly and dragonfly at the same time, I selected it for both missions relating to butterfly and dragonfly. Please help me identify this species.

Species ID Suggestions

The Common Picture Wing dragonfly

Rhyothemis variegata

Comments (2)

Thank you for the tip, btw how can you figure out its gender?

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