Elegant Dropwing, Trithemis werneri, Siervalvlerkie

Short description:

Elegant Dropwing, Trithemis werneri, Siervalvlerkie  is medium sized, slender and all orange-brown or brownish red, with a slender abdomen that is heavily marked at the joints.

Family Libellulidae Leach, 1815

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More Images: 

Guides:

• Dropwings - General (Trithemis)
• By Colour - Blue
• By Colour - Red, Orange, Yellow, Violet

Key identification features:

Male:

• Face is all light orange. Labrum with central dark brown triangle.    
• Eyes with reddish brown cap, mostly greyish brown with dark spots.   
• Thorax is dull orange with reddish brown shoulder stripes and narrow blackish connected side stripes. Thin dorsal stripe with small brownish arrow shaped marks near the rear of the thorax.    
• Wings clear with black veins, main veins light brown on underside, fairly large roundish transparent orange patch present at base of hindwings. 
• Abdomen very slender, orange red and heavily marked at joints (less pronounced on young males), especially side view of segments 5 to 10, giving it a striped appearance. S4 about 4x as long as wide (best seen in ventral view). Segment 9 nearly all black with small oval orange red patch. Segment 10 is black. 
• Legs Black with yellow stripes

Females:  

• Differs from male Light-yellow, orange with yellow to mustard yellow and brown with less pronounced abdominal markings than the male.    
• Thorax with tree dark brown lines NOT connected at the wing margin (Not forming an "M" pattern) The rearmost line ending in a "Y" split at the wing margin Humeral stripe broad and dark brow. 
• Light amber patches on hind wing near the thorax and in front and behind nodus.  Small light orange brown patch near the wing base.
• Wings may have amber parches round the nodus as well as behind the pterostigmas on both hi1nd and fore wings. Small amber patches at wing margins of hindwing 
• Abdomen with broad dark brown/black line on segment sides with lateral carina.   Black/brown ring marks either side of the segment splits Segment 8-9 has dark triangular mark with the base of triangle at hind margin  Cercus black pointing slightly outwards. 

Habitat

• Found along wide, swift, open rocky and reedy savanna rivers with an abundance of Phragmites reeds and where there are large trees lining the upper banks
• From 0 to 1000 m above sea level, but possibly up to 1300.

Behaviour:

• It perches on the tips of twigs on the tops of bushes or below the high tree canopy, facing the river.
• Often found some distance away from the water.
• Female perches in the same habitat.

Compared with other species:

• Best identified by the heavily striped and ringed abdomen.
• Trithemis annulata females  are similar but with less heavy markings along the joints with S 10 not completely black as in T. werneri. Thorax with clear "M" stripes zigzag  marks
• Does not have the depth of redness of the common Crocothemis and Trithemis  species.

Learn More about other Dropwings, (Trithemis) Species

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Distribution:

South Africa:

• Localised in the Mpumalanga lowveld area, Swaziland and northern KZN 

Africa:

•  Angola; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Kenya; Malawi; Mozambique; Namibia; Republic of South Africa; South Sudan; Tanzania; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe

Further reading:

Websites of interest

• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• A Visual Guide to the Damselflies and Dragonflies of South Africa