Protosticta at Ba Vi

*Updated on 24 December 2022. It is clear that Protosticta grandis sensu Asahina occurs in southern Vietnam. From my specimens it is clear that P. taipokauensis occurs on Ba Vi Mountain. Of course be 100% positive from the photo here is impossible, but it is highly likely that species.

Sorting through my photos of the first days of our stay in Vietnam, in fact of the first trip to Ba Vi, I came across two Protosticta species. The first seems to be a common species, Protosticta satoi. This is an interesting little forest damsel that keeps low to the ground and in dark and wet places, where they hang of the tips of leaves. It is interesting also because it occurs in two distinct color phases, described by Jan van Tol. Typical light specimens have a light prothorax, bordered by a dark line both anteriorly and posteriorly. Such are the specimens from Ba Vi. But at Ba Be National Park I noticed stunning differences in size and also the coloration of the prothorax was quite variable, with some mostly dark, including the pronotum, and in others with the centers of the lobes of the pronotum dark, but the remainder light. However, I could not find distinct differences in the appendages. additional work may yet point out whether the basis of this variability is intraspecific, or in fact that several species are involved.

The second species is much larger and more straightforward. This is Protosticta taipokauensis. 

Protosticta satoi, male, showing off typical pronotum

And Protosticta satoi, female

Protosticta taipokauensis, male