{"id":14143,"date":"2015-07-07T07:23:42","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T14:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14143"},"modified":"2015-07-07T07:23:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T14:23:42","slug":"skimmer-spotting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14143","title":{"rendered":"Skimmer spotting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding: 2px 2px 4px 6px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: -6px; margin-left: 8px; width: 270px; float: right; clear: left; color: #555555; background-color: #eeeeee; border: #dddddd 2px solid;\"><strong>Wildfire<\/strong>: I have been a tad distracted of late by a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14135\">threatening wildfire<\/a>. The danger is declining, but has not passed.<\/p>\n<p>Skimmers are a family of dragonflies for which much of the identification involves counting spots. But, there seems to be an arbitrariness about\u00a0just what should count as a spot.<\/p>\n<p>For example, I suspect that this is a Four-spotted Skimmer, but where are the four spots? Halfway along the forward edge (at the nodus) of each wing is a dark spot. There are four wings, so a total of four spots. What about the dark spots near the tip of each wing? These are the stigma, and are such a common feature of\u00a0dragonflies as to be not useful for identification. They are not counted.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14145\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/dragonfly150701s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Then there is a skimmer called the Common Whitetail. It does not even seem to be classified on the basis of the spots on its wings, despite some obvious big ones.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14144\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/commonwhitetail0630s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The classification of the Twelve-spotted Skimmer is a bit more obvious. Each wing shows three prominent dark areas, so with four wings altogether, twelve spots.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14146\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/twelvespottedskimmer150706s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Two dark spots per wing give the Eight-spotted Skimmer, of which this picture shows two. Normally, a skimmer hunts from a perch. It spots another insect and heads out to capture it. However, males dislike the incursion of another male in their hunting and breeding territory. The resulting combat seems to be what was captured in this fleeting view of one Eight-spotted Skimmer challenging another.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14147\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/eightspottedskimmer150630s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Wildfire: I have been a tad distracted of late by a threatening wildfire. The danger is declining, but has not passed. Skimmers are a family of dragonflies for which much of the identification involves counting spots. But, there seems &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14143\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14143"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14161,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14143\/revisions\/14161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}