Yellow-winged Darter (Sympetrum flaveolum)

Janet,

I have had a message suggesting that your images of the Yellow-winged Darter (Sympetrum flaveolum), are not that species, but the much commoner (in England) species the Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum)..

I have not found it easy to confirm this, there are so many more images of males than females on the net.

Here is whar my correspondent says:

Here is the best picture I can find of a female Sympetrum flaveolum: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Sympflavfd7188.jpg

The yellow patches referred to are very obvious and are not found on your specimen. There are also black markings on the rear segments of the abdomen and again these do not seem to be present on your specimen.

Here are a couple of images of a female Sympetrum striolatum: http://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/P6/P61135.php
http://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/P6/P61133.php
these are of a , so the reddish colour is not typical but in every other regard this looks a much closer fit to your dragonfly.

I think that your images should be transferred to our Sympetrum striolatum page here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/1900/

Ken

I think that is the best option Ken, to transfer them. They can be very difficult to the amateur or even experienced observer!

Thankyou, I have now moved the images and you can view them here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/1900/

Ken

This site has good pics if you need future reference Ken,

http://www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/syfla.html

and as you can see in their pic of the female the wings don't have much yellow at all. My darter did seem to have much more than any common darter I have seen, but it doesn't show up so well on the pic. It was likely an older specimen too, with dark side markings and the back of the abdomen does look to have a worn stripe down the middle. The brown wing tabs looked to be darkly outlined also, but I am no expert!

To add to the above I am adding that I did a great deal of research on this, and I know I'm banging my head against a brick wall here as there are people who do not believe this darter is actually here, or is a very rare migrant. Mine was in the very hot record year of 2006, when we had no end of insects which would not normally be here.

The brocross website is records in Cheshire, which is way west of me,

http://www.brocross.com/dfly/species/flaveo.htm

The Lincolnshire records are patchy, but what records are not when there has to be generally a specimen in hand which is recognise officially by a person who is a recognised expert. The records are to the north and east of me, not far away at all.

http://www.lincstrust.org.uk/species/dragonfly_damselfly/yellow-winged_darter/index.php

Other points I did pick up on other sites which I would need to find again if possible, are some points I noted at the top of the pics apart form those already mentioned. One was the shape of the back of eyes, where there is a nearly straight continuation in line from one eye to the next, on the common darter that is more curved. Another was the very noticeable yellow on the legs, which mine has and looks much broader than the yellow stripes on the common darter. I have compared carefully the markings on the abdomen with the one on the dragonfly society, I see no difference. On the delta-intkey site the drawings also show the same markings, which to me look the same as mine and are quite different, with close inspection, to others. I am interested to know what marks the person who questioned this would expect to see besides.

http://delta-intkey.com/britin/images/lucas02.jpg

Well, you know me Ken, I do a lot of research and know that these things can be very difficult, but this one is bugging me.