Species Spotlight: Slaty Skimmer

We just returned from a trip to New England, where we saw a lot of dragonflies and damselflies that we don't see here on the west coast. We saw a lot of them right across the street from our hotel, in a little retention pond:



Even the most inconspicuous habitat can be a great place to do some dragonflying. One of the many species we saw there was the Slaty Skimmer, a large dark blue dragonfly with clear wings and black eyes:



Here are a couple more photos of this species:





These dragonflies were just a few miles from historic Lexington, MA, where I lived while I was a post-doc at MIT. Here are a couple views from around the village green in Lexington:





We then traveled just a few miles farther to Cambridge, and the campus of MIT:



A great trip for history, memories, and dragonflies!