Tramea loewii

6 Common Glider at Chapman, ACT

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Identification history

Tramea loewii	17 Mar 2020	HarveyPerkins
Tramea loewii	9 Mar 2020	roymcd
Unidentified	22 Jan 2020	SWishart

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Significant sighting

HarveyPerkins noted:

17 Mar 2020

This species appears to be essentially an uncommon vagrant in the Canberra region.

User's notes

Possibly newly emerged as it has some weird bits looping off the body - best seen from rear

6 comments

roymcd wrote:

9 Mar 2020

Hi SWishart, thanks for your interesting photos. (If you have any more of this individual, can you please upload them).
I really need to get a second opinion from Dr Harvey Perkins for this individual. It might (emphasis 'might') be a Common Glider, Tramea loewii, which would be a new observation/significant sighting for Canberra Nature Map, and possibly the Canberra region in general. We will wait with anticipation for Harvey's opinion, who is far more qualified than I to give a verdict on these matters.
Regardless of the verdict, a very interesting photo, thanks :-)

http://www.bushpea.com/df/pg/all/c/common%20glider%2009.html

roymcd wrote:

10 Mar 2020

Without getting too far ahead of myself, ALA seems to have one record of this species within the ACT.
https://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:afd.taxon:fc655481-9fc9-46a1-afcb-7c3d88f1e4b5

SWishart wrote:

10 Mar 2020

Hi I've added a third photo but the others are just the same as these ones and the new one is very similar to the first one. Sorry, it was in an awkward spot against the sun.

roymcd wrote:

10 Mar 2020

Hi SWishart, thanks for the third photo, which provides further useful detail, (and looks even more promising for a positive ID in favour of Common Glider, Tramea loewii).
It will be interesting to see what Harvey thinks when he manages a spare moment and has a look at it.
Kind regards, Roy.

HarveyPerkins wrote:

18 Mar 2020

Hi Susan - Roy is quite right; this is a Common Glider Tramea loewii. Though they are far from common in Canberra. This one appears to be a female, or possibly a newly emerged male. The location suggests it was not close to any significant water body - can you confirm that? If so, this would suggest to me that it is a female, possibly flown in or been blown in from elsewhere as I don't think there are any reliable local breeding sites.

The following is draft text from my (very) slowly evolving field guide...

This is a rare species in the ACT, and appears to be present only irregularly. Nationally, its distribution is more to the east and north, and the ACT probably only provides marginal conditions for this species. It may be that it occurs in the ACT only after migration from more suitable regions, or after relatively mild winters which may allow any locally laid eggs to hatch and larvae to survive the Canberra winter. I’ve only seen this species at two locations in the ACT: the main dam at the National Arboretum, and a small dam in The Pinnacle Nature Reserve; both in the spring/summer of 2016-17 (from 21 October to 11 January).

I hadn't realised I hadn't included this species in CNM. Will address that right away. The record Roy mentions in ALA is one of my records from the Arboretum dam on 21 Oct 2016.

SWishart wrote:

19 Mar 2020

On the assumption that my little 1m x 2m pond (with fish to eat mossie larvae) and the neighbour's water feature don't count then there is no significant water around here that I know of. Even the dam on Cooleman Ridge at the end of Dam FT was dry at the time (but full of weeds and lovely insects including my first ever sighting of a blue banded bee) - from memory mid-late Jan was still pretty windy.
P.S. Field Guide??? Yes please - I'm putting an order in now for whenever it's finished. No pressure!

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