Orthetrum sabina sabina: First Dragonfly Catch

Net gain of 1

I'm pretty sure I'm holding it correctly. It did fly away when I let it go.

Close-up of caudal appendage

Finally finished my dragonfly net. There happened to be two species of dragonfly flying around the house in the late morning. Successful in catching this little guy, or girl: Orthetrum sabina s. or its common names, slender skimmer or green march hawk. It's a beautiful specimen with black and green alternating stripes on its thorax and humongous, green compound eyes. It's also rather feisty. I let it crawl on my hand and it bit me! Its fangs are pretty powerful and the bite drew a tiny bit of blood. When it breaths, its abdomen inflates and deflates a bit. According to another blogger of dragonflies, you can only tell what sex the bugger is if you compare the caudal appendage. The female appendage is more splayed, but I cannot really tell now looking at these photos. Sabinas are found all over the world, from Africa to Australia. Most dragonflies of worldwide distribution have also found their way to Guam. Diplacodes bipunctatus is also found all over the world.

Thanks to my sister for taking these awesome photos and my dad for using his expert bug catching skills to catch the dragonfly.