I had an email from J-P Boudot recently enclosing a splendid paper on the above species. This is the Moustached Darter in the vernacular but the Spanish race does not have the black line down the frons - it is clean shaven.
The distribution of this beast has, until now, been very uncertain; old records near Madrid and Valencia proved to be incorrect. The problem is that, without its moustache, the insect looks so similar to S. striolatum it could very easily be overlooked. Diaz Martinez & Evangelio Pinach 2015 (Boletin SEA 57) have examined all the records and shown that it is very local but found over much of the northern half of Iberia.
You need to check the genitalia to be sure; but the species does have very light coloured forward wing veins, which you can see in the picture here.
Having read the paper, I checked back on my photos and, almost certainly, found it back in 2012 in Cuenca. I have written a piece on the identification of Sympetrums which, hopefully, appear in print shortly.
What this means is that to study dragonflies in Iberia you need to keep your net handy for at least two genera: Ischnura (explained on this website) and Sympetrum.
The distribution of this beast has, until now, been very uncertain; old records near Madrid and Valencia proved to be incorrect. The problem is that, without its moustache, the insect looks so similar to S. striolatum it could very easily be overlooked. Diaz Martinez & Evangelio Pinach 2015 (Boletin SEA 57) have examined all the records and shown that it is very local but found over much of the northern half of Iberia.
You need to check the genitalia to be sure; but the species does have very light coloured forward wing veins, which you can see in the picture here.
Having read the paper, I checked back on my photos and, almost certainly, found it back in 2012 in Cuenca. I have written a piece on the identification of Sympetrums which, hopefully, appear in print shortly.
What this means is that to study dragonflies in Iberia you need to keep your net handy for at least two genera: Ischnura (explained on this website) and Sympetrum.
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