A typical first of December - not

* Post adjusted on November 15, 2025. Planaeschna is synonymized with Aeschnophlebia. Kompier et al. (2021) sorted out details of Vietnamese species of this genus. Adjustments are made to below text between square brackets [].

This December 1 we spent in Huu Lien, where we ran into Sebastien, who had just, unknowingly, obtained the key to the gomphid mystery there. More on that later. It was as usual an interesting day. Smack in the middle of the forest I caught a Planaeschna [= Aeschnophlebia] female. For the time being I put it in the books as P. guentherpetersi [= A. ishigakiana guentherpetersi], the species from Xuan Son. It was marginally smaller (a few mm) and the face was darker, where it was light brown and yellow in Xuan Son, it was dark brown here, but otherwise there are no easily detectable differences. [In fact, as explained in Kompier et al. (2021), this is a closely related but different species, described in Kompier et al. as Planaeschna (= Aeschnophlebia) sp. 2.] See below:

Planaeschna guentherpetersi, female

And scanned

Face in frontal view

For comparison, the female from Xuan Son [this in fact is the same A. sp. 2, not the in Xuan Son more commonly encountered A. ishigakiana guentherpetersi]

And in hand, female from Xuan Son