Neon Skimmer? (Libellula croceipennis)
Location: Naperville, IL
June 30, 2011 11:18 am
Hello there!
I captured these images last July(2010) of what I think is a male neon skimmer sitting atop a tomato cage. He certainly lives up to his name. This amazingly beautiful creature sat there for 10 minutes while I snapped all kinds of closeups, barely twitching. Then he flew off. Thank you for hosting this amazing site. I could spend hours perusing it and admiring all the astounding photos. Best regards,
Signature: Dori Eldridge
Hi Dori,
The Neon Skimmer is a western species, and we disagree with your assessment, but alas, we don’t have an alternative. Dragonfly identifications are very confusing for us, and we would prefer that someone with more experience identify the species. We have been looking at possibilities on BugGuide to no avail though we do agree that it is most likely in the Skimmer family Libellulidae, which is very well represented on BugGuide. Then, as we were about to post, we tried a last ditch effort and did a web search for “red dragonfly Illinois” and we found the Field Museum Common Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Chicago Region website, and there was your Western Meadowhawk, Sympetrum semicinctum. A cross check on BugGuide satisfied us that the identification was correct, but considers the species to be the Band-Winged Meadowhawk.
Thank you! Goodness, living in the midst of a large prairie preserve, you’d think I would have jumped on the Meadowhawk genus from the start and noted the geographical un-likelihood of a neon skimmer. And thank you for the awesome Field Museum link – I’ve never seen it before. You are wonderful, wonderful! Regards,
-Dori