Three Fine-lined Emerald dragonflies (Somatochlora filosa) were spotted during a long photowalk at an undisclosed location in Prince William County, Virginia USA. All three individuals are males, as indicated by their terminal appendages and prominent hamules.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Source Credit: Sir Isaac Newton.
Sincere thanks to Jim Waggener, Wildlife Survey Coordinator for The Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, as well as other members of Jim’s survey group for sharing information that enabled me to find this rare to uncommon species of dragonfly. The group has surveyed four sites in Northern Virginia regularly for many years, including the one where I shot the following photographs.
No. 1
Fine-lined Emerald dragonflies seem to prefer perching on bare tree branches or long stems of wild grass, typically at chest- or head-height although not exclusively. For example, this guy was perched about waist-high on a cluster of fallen tree branches.
(See a full-size version of the original photo, without annotation.)
Fine-lined Emerald seems to prefer perching in sun rather than shade, unlike Mocha Emerald (Somatochlora linearis) — another species from the Family Corduliidae (Emeralds) found in Northern Virginia that prefers shady places.
The following ventral-lateral shot shows the lines on the thorax for which this species is named.
(See a full-size version of the original photo, without annotation.)
No. 2
The male shown in the next photo is perched on a long grass stem, about chest-high. He posed for two shots, patrolled back-and-forth a few times, and then disappeared.
No. 3
The last male was the most cooperative model. The first photo was taken at a distance of approximately six feet.
The next photo was taken a step-or-so closer…
And after a few side steps, I was able to take a good lateral shot.
The Backstory
This might be one of those stories in which the take-away is “persistence pays dividends.”
I made two trips to this site during Fall 2016 when Fine-lined Emerald was my target species. On 21 September 2016, I spotted one or more dragonflies (species unknown) patrolling the treetops along one of the trails at the park. I didn’t see any signs of Fine-lined Emerald on 25 October 2016, consistent with records for late-date maintained by Kevin Munroe (04 October for Northern Virginia) and Dr. Steven Roble (15 October for the Commonwealth of Virginia).
In retrospect, I realized I started searching too late in the year during 2016 so I started earlier in 2017. My first trip to the site was on 30 August 2017; it turned out to be fruitless. I hit the jackpot on 10 September 2017! Fine-lined Emerald is a new species for my life list of dragonflies.
Rare to Uncommon
A distribution map of official records for Fine-lined Emerald helps to illustrate its classification as a rare to uncommon species of odonate.
Source Credit: Abbott, J.C. 2006-2017. OdonataCentral: An online resource for the distribution and identification of Odonata. Available at http://www.odonatacentral.org. (Accessed: September 14, 2017).
Key: blue dots = Dot Map Project; green dots = Accepted records; yellow dots = Pending records.
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Copyright © 2017 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
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