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Photo#784795
ID for a green dragonfly? - Erythemis collocata - male

ID for a green dragonfly? - Erythemis collocata - Male
Claremont, Los Angeles County, California, USA
June 9, 2013
This large green dragonfly was spotted at the Claremont Colleges' Bernard Field Station. It flew up from the water of the small artifical lake and landed in a tree. My only idea is that it might be a female Western Pondhawk (Erythemis collocata). Any information about its identity will be greatly appreciated!

Moved
Moved from Dragonflies.

 
Thanks, again!
Oops! I edited the post to indicate male, but I forgot to move it to the species page. Thanks for taking care of that, John and Jane!

Looks like we have a nice group of them posted to BugGuide

It looks like we can also see the secondary genitalia
under the second abdominal segment, so we would be comfortable saying this is a young adult male.

 
Thanks, again!
Thanks, again! I've indicated that this one is a male. The other (unposted) photo is side view, and while it's very blurry, it does seem to show some sort of bump under the second abdominal segment. Now I'll know what to look for!

Would agree with Western Pondhawk
but we can't make out the end of the abdomen. Wonder if this is what a young male might look like???

 
Thanks!
Thanks, John and Jane, for the ID confirmation! Western Pondhawks are uncommon at the field station, but we see them occasionally (e.g., here). At least we can record that we've seen this species this year.

I did wonder about a young male. The Digital Atlas of Idaho says, "Females and immature males are a uniform bright green from the face to the tip of the abdomen", and there's at least one image of a green male on BugGuide. Unfortunately, I don't have a better photo. I had the macro lens on my camera when this dragonfly surprised me, and I ended up shooting at a distance with the macro and didn't get very sharp photos. I have one shot from another angle, but the tip of the abdomen is completely blocked by a leaf.

I'm not sure if this photo is useful for the guide, so please frass if it's not needed.

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