Pantala flavescens

Anisoptera

Species Name: Pantala flavescens
Family: Libellulidae

Pantala flavescens is certainly the world’s most widely distributed dragonfly – found worldwide in the tropics as well as in temperate zones of North America and Europe. It’s the only odonate that Borneo shares with the United Kingdom where it is found as a rare vagrant. For this reason, and because it had even been known to land on ships far out at sea, its common name is the Globe Skimmer or Wandering Glider.

The colour of the thorax and abdomen of both sexes is orangish to light brown with clear wings, the small dark area on the tip of the hindwing is distinctive. They can be seen flying almost anywhere in open country, sometimes in great numbers, they rarely perch. They breed in standing or slow moving water, so rice paddies in the tropics are particularly suitable habitats.

Male Globe Skimmer on my finger

As these insects are almost perpetually on the wing, I have not been able to take a good photo of them in nature. I was however lucky to find one on the ground – which I picked up and photographed perched on my finger.

Orthetrum sabina

Anisoptera
Species Name: Orthetrum sabina
Family: Libellulidae

Most people in Sabah would have seen this very common dragonfly in the compound of houses and buildings both in rural areas as well as in towns, in gardens and parks, on the roadside, near drains and ponds. It is definitely one of the dragonflies that I had played with in my childhood!

It is in fact a very wide-spread species that occurs from North Africa, through the Middle East, India and Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia, to China and Japan, through Indonesia to Australia and Oceania.

This dragonfly's distinctive yellowish-green colour with black markings and a slender abdomen or "tail" make it very recognizable and cannot be mistaken for any other dragonfly of this size. It breeds in drains, shallow ponds and even muddy pools of water. Its common name is the Slender Skimmer.