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Red-Veined Darter Dragon Fly
An Article by Dave G with The Voice Fuerteventura
These beautiful Dragonflies are easy to spot, as they love water and are often found hovering around the pool.
NOMAD BY NATURE
The red-veined darter or nomad as it often called is a Dragonfly that is commonly found here in Fuerteventura. Not unlike our new writer, they are also occasionally found in the UK and Ireland as since the 1990´s they have changed their usual migration patterns in order to cope with the effects of global warming. It is a part of the Sympetrum genus “Sympetrum fonscolombii” and has a diet that is variable according to the season. Typically these dragonflies live off aquatic insects, molluscs and crustaceans, but have also been known to enjoy spiders, worms, tadpoles and even small fish eggs and seeds.
SMALL YET COLOURFUL
As dragonflies go, this is quite a small species as they grow to around 4cm in length and have a wingspan of about 6cm. This small size makes it difficult to tell the males and females apart, but there are specific differences if you can get close enough to see. The mature males have a bright red abdomen, while the female’s is a brownish-yellow with two black lines along each side, and both sexes have red and yellow veined wings, respectively. Immature males have a similar colouring to the female, but only a single black line along each side of the abdomen.
REPRODUCTION
Dragonflies are territorial and after copulation the pair will stay together for the egg laying where the female dips her abdomen into the water and deposits the eggs. Unlike Butterflies, Dragonflies do not go through a pupal stage and instead, after three months, adults emerge from the final moult of the larval stage, which occurs above the waters surface.
