Xuan Son in late October

With apologies for the lack of postings in recent months. I have been busy writing papers.

Saturday October 21 I decided to go to Xuan Son. I have had little time recently, but now is the time the Planaeschna fly there. In fact this was the only weekend available to go, so although the weather was not very promising, I went anyway. For three years I have been catching a small pale-faced Planaescha female, but never a male. I was getting a little desperate, as this was the last chance I had.

The weather was a little better than expected and quite soon I caught another female. Then several hours nothing, but fly by's of the large Planaeschna spec. nov. female and of female P. guentherpetersi. I did in the meantime tun into something unexpected: a male Coeliccia chromothorax. The 8th species of this genus along this 1.5 km stream. No idea how it got there. It is a striking species and I had never seen it on a large number of previous visits. Strange.

I also found a female Cryptophaea vietnamensis. In itself that is not strange, but it was covered in algae. I remember a discussion on this on the Facebook page on neotropical dragonflies. I do not remember ever having seen it in Vietnam, but apparently it does happen here too.

And then I caught a male "large" Planaeschna spec. nov. and shortly after a much smaller one: the pale-faced male! I now have the males of all four species of Planaeschna occurring on this particular stream, 3 of them new to science.

Female Cryptophaea vietnamensis. Note the algae on the wings and abdominal tip!

Male Coeliccia chromothorax. Exciting find!

And there it is: Male pale-faced Planaeschna spec. nov. at last!

Appendages very different from P. guentherpetersi

And its pale face

So does Planaeschna guentherpetersi occur in Huu Lien or not?

On December 1, 2014, I caught a female Planaeschna in Huu Lien that seemed to be a P. guentherpetersi, complete with the typical dorsal and lateral pattern on S2. Please see the concerned post. The facial pattern however was much more vivid than anything I have ever seen in Xuan Son, where the species is quite common. So, when I discussed with Haruki Karube a little while back we decided that it was not likely these two were in fact the same species. But I had no material from Huu Lien for comparison (I may have released the specimen at the time, or it was eaten by vermin, anyway, I do not have it), so it was/is undetermined. I had a single specimen last year that flew off. Finally yesterday I noticed an Aeshnid in the dark of the forest flying about. It hung from a twig, but I could not get to it, so decided to make some pictures with flash. These made it clear is was a male, and that it was a Planaeschna for sure. It also has the same dorsal pattern as the female on S2. Interestingly, the pattern on the remainder of the abdomen and on the lateral side of S2 is the same as in P. guentherpetersi. The shape of the appendages, insofar as can be judged from the pictures is not at variance with that of P. guentherpetersi either. Although the fact remains that the female has quite a more pronounced facial pattern, it seems for the time better to assume this is a local variant than enough grounds to claim this is a different species. But of course, I will try to catch it at the next occasion. It would be great to sample the populations for DNA.

The enlightened photo of the Huu Lien specimen, showing the typical dorsal pattern of S2 and remainder of the abdominal pattern. Compare with the below scan of the Xuan Son male.

The Xuan Son male. Planaeschna species have a lot of variation in the pattern of S2 or the abdomen, so for these specimens to very similar is likely too much of a coincidence.

The Huu Lien male at a different angle, showing the intense green and black thorax pattern and the lateral pattern of S2, with the yellow auricle and two spots on the distal edge.  This is very much the same pattern as can be seen in the scan below.

See the pattern of S2 on this male from Xuan Son. No other species in Vietnam, out of the other 9 or so I have found, has a similar pattern, but the specimen from Huu Lien has it. See also the heel on the ventral side of the superior appendages, visible in both the scan and the photo. For what it is worth, of course.

The real female Planaeschna tomokunii

On September 24 I went to Tam Dao to look for Planaeschna tamdaoensis and P. tomokunii. The first I wanted to catch to see if it is truly different from P. gressitti, and the other to verify what I had concluded was P. tomokunii from Pia Oac and Yen Bai. The day started dismally. It was misty and the road to Tam Dao 2 was blocked. So I went to the stairway to the antenna above Tam Dao. This is the location where Cuong had caught the species before and I was hoping that I might see it at a small stream in the forest there. Previously I had not been lucky, but this time, after some staking out, I noticed a female searching for a place to oviposit. I could not reach her, but several other specimens made an appearance and eventually I could net one. This is a remarkably robust species at 71mm body length. And even if I could not find a male, this female as enough to show that the drawings and description of Cuong are very accurate. It also made clear that this species is certainly not identical to what occurs at Pia Oac and at Yen Bai. It is of course still possible that the males are variants of the same species, but I for sure had no similar females yet. Whatever the females from Yen Bai and Pia Oac (at least two different species) are, they are not P. tomokunii. I hope that soon I will have time to try for the male again.

Planaeschna tomokunii, remarkably robust and with relatively dark abdomen.

Its face is not as bland pale brown as in most. The labrum is distinctly pale and there are clear  brown flecks on the postclypeus.

The pattern on S2 is very interesting. The dorsal line is indeed interrupted, and the distal mark is quite narrow

Planaeschna cucphuongensis - luckily more widespread?

In 1998 Haruki Karube collected a male Planaeschna on June 2 from Cuc Phuong National Park, which he described in 1999 as Planaeschna cucphuongensis. The species appears rare at Cuc Phuong, but was also found by Ellenrieder et al. Yokoii has also recorded it in Lao, so it may be more widespread. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find it on May 11 in Pu Luong Nature Reserve, which is quite a bit higher in altitude than Cuc Phuong, although belonging to the same mountain range. Pu Luong lies west of Cuc Phuong. The location I found the species was about 60km west of central Cuc Phuong. First I caught a female and subsequently a teneral male. This male fit the description by Karube very well, albeit that it was very fresh. The female was mature, but a proper description of the female is lacking. I therefore wanted to verify the identity of these two specimens against specimens from Cuc Phuong. I had not been successful in locating the species in Cuc Phuong before, but on June 16 I went to the general location where it had been recorded by Ellenrieder et al. and I was lucky enough to find a female. This female is identical to the female from Pu Luong, supporting the identification of the teneral male. In view of the scarcity of the species at Cuc Phuong, this is a great to know. In stead of being a rare species restricted to the National Park, it ranges possibly wide both over an altitudinal range, as geographically all the way into Lao DPR.
The species is one of several (like P. guentherpetersi, P. tomokunii, and P. species novum from Xuan Son) that have a generally brown-orange face. It has limited dorsal markings on the abdomen. The female has the ventral half of S2 all yellow, and has extensive brown basal patches to both fore and hindwing.

Female Planaeschna cucphuongensis. Note extensive dark basal patches, large yellow ventral areas to S1-2 and base of S3. Also S4-7 with only mid-dorsal spots on the dorsum and none on S8-10, mirroring the pattern of the male.

Scan of dorsal view. Note lack of cross-veins in median space, indicating Planaeschna.

Face of the female from Cuc Phuong. Sort of uniform orange, although frons darker, especially towards dorsal side and labrum more yellow

The face of the Pu Luong female, too dark a photo, but even so it is obvious the pattern and colour are similar

The Pu Luong female, showing same characteristics as the female from Cuc Phuong, just somewhat fresher, as she is younger

Teneral male Planaeschna cucphuongensis. Photos taken in local hotel in the evening after allowing the specimen to dry. Sadly it could not take shape properly. Nevertheless patterning of abdomen, even if vague, can be seen. Mid-dorsal marks are the only markings on the dorsum of S4-7

Typical appendages in dorsal view, nicely rounded on inner edge in apical half. Identical to holotype description.

The face of the teneral male, indicating it will likely be darker on the frons (and postclypeus) when mature.

Ventral view against hotel bedding. Median space without cross-veins indicating Planaeschna. Anal loop 6-celled and triangle 3-4 celled in fore and hindwing (description of holotype 4-5 celled)

Yet another Aeshnid hunt at Xuan Son

On November 29 I drove again to Xuan Son with the objective of finding Planaeschna species. It was a brilliant sunny day, possibly the last of the year, so maybe the last chance to find additional males. In a way I was lucky. There were Planaeschnas all over the place. However, they were all females. Over a dozen Planaeschna guentherpetersi were around and one of the similar, but different, Planaeschna sp., also a female. I hoped hard for a male, but although I saw a male fly by in a hurry, there was no chance to catch any.

Two other Aeshnids were around. I saw literally hundreds of Boyeria karubei at dusk and a few during the day and I saw a male Gynacantha japonica hanging in a bush. Below a few photos.

One of the several females Planaeschna guentherpetersi that I caught. A record shot. Note the typical pattern on S2.

Another female discovered perched. Note the typical pattern in the dorsum of S2 and the yellow wing bases. 

The female Planaeschna sp., different in for instance the pattern on S2 and the much shorter cerci.

Facial pattern of Planaeschna sp.

Hanging male Gynacantha japonica. Note the small, light-colored epiproct.

One of the many Boyeria karubei around

A fourth Planaeschna species from Xuan Son

Sunday October 26 was highly productive for Planaeschnids, with 4 species observed at Xuan Son National Park. This is rather exceptional for me, but I love them. Haomiao Zhang in personal comments stated that this highly speciose genus has at least 50 species with many in southern China. It comes as no surprise that the same goes for northern Vietnam. Indeed, we are only starting to scratch the surface. Partly this is because visiting scholars have been focussing on spring and early summer, whereas many Aeshnids fly in autumn.

After I caught the first "not gressitti" (see earlier posts) I saw another patrolling a square meter of open water on a stream inside the forest. I was able to catch it and although it looked similar, it also clearly was much larger. In fact the "non-gressitti" was 65mm total body length, but this specimen was 75mm. Of course, in detail it is also rather different. For now I need to treat it as yet another species incertae.

Planaeschna species novum / species incertae, male. Note the straight appendages (see below)

The four males caught. Left P. guentherpetersi, middle row P. "not gressitti" and right the present larger species. Note also the variation in the pattern of S2, with 6 marks in the larger species, 5 in P. guentherpetersi and 4 in "not gressitti"

Appendages in dorsal view, robust, straight

But also suddenly expanded in dorso-lateral view

Robust and straight in lateral view

Penile distal segment in ventral view, Angular in outline and with moderate earlobes

In lateral view, earlobes visible

Facial pattern in brown, not black

Two pale-faced Planaeschna species from Xuan Son

October 26 I was working the streams of Xuan Son. This is the place where P. guentherpetersi was described from. I ran into it last year and again this Sunday I bumped into several. Females were flying about and ovipositing in the trees over the water, sometimes at several meters height. But I also noticed them ovipositing on logs floating on the water. Although I saw several, I was only able to catch one female and take pictures of another. Only late in the day, not far from dusk, did I finally catch a male. I also caught another rather similar female, but somewhat smaller, with different ovipositor and different pattern on S2. This somewhat smaller species is different from P. guentherpetersi, but I have as yet not been able to find what it then might be.

Another female Planaeschna guentherpetersi. Note again the characteristic pattern on S2.

Facial pattern of female P. guentherpetersi, largely orange-yellow, but darker anteclypeus.

The male of Planaeschna guentherpetersi.

In dorsal view, the same male. Note the 5-spot mark on the dorsum of S2.

Facial pattern of male P. guentherpetersi, similar to female, but antefrons much darker brownish black towards dorsal half.

       

Appendages in lateral view of P. guentherpetersi, clear uplift

And in dorsal view. Epiproct looks shorter than it really is through angle (distorted in death)

Penile final segment in ventral view. Not rounded and no "earlobes", very different from the "gressitti" types

  

In lateral view,  no earlobes

The other pale faced Planeaschna female caught hunting over the stream. Note the very different pattern on S2 and the lack of pale markings between the two greenish yellow lateral stripes.

The face of Planaeschna species incertae, with pale anteclypeus.

The two females in dorsal view. Planaeschna species incertae on top and P. guentherpetersi below.  Apart from the smaller size and reduced amber bases to the wings of the species incertae, note also the very different pattern of S2.

The same in lateral view. Note the different lateral marking on S2 and the different relative length of the paraprocts.

Which becomes obvious here. Much longer and differently shaped paraprocts. Also, the ventral projection of S10 is less pronounced. Female P. guentherpetersi

The same for Planaeschna species incertae. Shorter paraprocts and more pronounced ventral keel. Clearly this is a different species.