Lestes elatus

Lestes elatus[2][1] is a species of damselfly in the family Lestidae, the spreadwings. It is known commonly as the emerald spreadwing.[3][4] It is native to India, Thailand and Sri Lanka.[1][5]

Lestes elatus
Male
Female
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Odonata
Suborder:
Zygoptera
Family:
Lestidae
Genus:
Lestes
Species:
L. elatus
Binomial name
Lestes elatus
Hagen in Selys, 1862

Description and habitat

It is a medium sized damselfly with greenish blue eyes. Thorax is brown on dorsum, changing to yellowish-brown on the sides. The dorsum of thorax is marked with a pair of narrow ante-humeral metallic green stripes expanded outwardly at the abdominal end like a hockey stick. There are three tiny black spots on the lateral sides. The brown color of the thorax will change to bluish-white due to pruinescence in adults. Its abdomen is pale yellowish brown at the sides in the young, marked broadly on dorsum with metallic green, up to segment 8. The basal half of segment 9 is black and the apical half is yellowish brown. Segment 10 is yellowish brown. The yellowish-brown color of the abdomen will change to bluish-white due to pruinescence in the adults. Anal appendages are creamy yellow, broadly tipped with black in the young; entirely black in the adults. It can be easily distinguished from other species of this genus by its unique metallic thoracic stripes.[6]

Female is similar to the male and with less pruinescence.[6]

It breeds in ponds, marshes and paddy fields in the plains.[6][7][8][3][4]

See also

References
  1. "Lestes elatus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2011: e.T190840A8835656. 2011.
  2. Martin Schorr; Dennis Paulson. "World Odonata List". University of Puget Sound. Retrieved 12 Oct 2018.
  3. "Lestes elatus Hagen in Selys, 1862". India Biodiversity Portal. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  4. "Lestes elatus Hagen in Selys, 1862". Odonata of India, v. 1.00. Indian Foundation for Butterflies. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  5. K.A., Subramanian; K.G., Emiliyamma; R., Babu; C., Radhakrishnan; S.S., Talmale (2018). Atlas of Odonata (Insecta) of the Western Ghats, India. Zoological Survey of India. pp. 36–37. ISBN 9788181714954.
  6. C FC Lt. Fraser (1933). The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma, Odonata Vol. I. Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London: Taylor and Francis. pp. 37-40.
  7. C FC Lt. Fraser (1924). A Survey of the Odonate (Dragonfly) Fauna of Western India with Special Remarks on the Genera Macromia and Idionyx and Descriptions of Thirty New Species (PDF). Zoological Survey of India. Volumes (Records). p. 484.
  8. Subramanian, K. A. (2005). Dragonflies and Damselflies of Peninsular India - A Field Guide.

Data related to Lestes elatus at Wikispecies

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