Lestes dissimulans
Face: With pale bluish lower part, remainder black. Labrum and anteclypeus pale bluish green. Postclypeus blackish, pale blue on outer margins. Genae pale greyish blue. Head above mostly black with sheen.
Eyes: bright blue above, greyish below
Prothorax: black with metallic green blotches.
Synthorax: with faint greyish brown and black irregular stripes. Sides with fairly heavy pruinescence and small black dots.
Wings: clear to slightly smoky
Pterostigmas: broad, rectangular, dark brown with fine, pale borders anteriorly and on outer edge
Abdomen: greenish grey, with black markings beginning on S1 as a large spot, widening to dorsal band on S2-7. S8 mostly black. Fine yellowish rings at end of each S1-7. S9-10 pruinescent bright grey. Superior appendages all black.
Female: greenish brown with broken metallic green stripes on thorax, as in male.
Medium-sized, greenish grey speckled and lightly striped. Localised at bush-fringed pools in hot savanna.
Hangs, with wings outstretched, from grass stems and rushes overwater.
This small Lestes species is greenish grey with an irregular, striped thorax, becoming heavily pruinescent with age. It is smaller than L. uncifer , and not so green. It is not continuously and distinctly striped like most L. pallidus or L. plagiatus, nor plain brown like L. ictericus (and the occasional L. pallidus), nor spotted like L tridens. It is essential to examine the appendages which have a ledge-like inner margin and only a single, small obtuse basal tooth.
LP and N of KZNP. To E andWAfrica.
Flight period: Dec-May
Pools and swamps in hot savanna.