ICO 2019: Five-striped Leaftail

Here's another species we saw on the trip to Texas for the International Congress on Odonatology (ICO) last July that we were not even aware before the trip—the Five-striped Leaftail. This male is perched on his favorite twig near the Guadalupe River in the town of Gonzales, TX:



The five stripes in the name refer to the five dark stripes on the side of the thorax, the fifth one being rather small and hard to see underneath the wings. The next photo shows the five stripes from a different angle:



The leaftail part of the name is more obvious, due to the shape of the tip of the abdomen. In the next picture, we see a male elevating his abdomen and expanding the "leaves" from either side of the abdomen.



Here's a closer look at this feature. Notice that the leaves were hanging downward in the first couple of photos.



This is an impressive dragonfly, especially when you consider that it has "moveable parts" on its abdomen—something you don't often see in dragonflies.