Inland Ringtail
Male, body, dorsal
Ellura
Inland Ringtail
Male, holding Female before Mating
 
                      
Inland Ringtail (Austrolestes aridus)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Dragonflies (Odonata)
Family: Spreadwing (Zygoptera: Lestidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Inland Ringtail (Austrolestes aridus)
This Photo:     🔍Pair before Mating🔎

Thank you John Tann for identifying and Reiner Richter for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
~37mm to ~40mm long.
While we recognised the males a long time ago, we recently found a female (shown here as S13) that we thought was a Slender Ringtail (Austrolestes analis). John recognised it as this species and said: "Light-coloured band below humeral stripe has a wobbly boundary. There are about 4 strong wobbles for aridus cf more and flatter for analis
L-mark of analis is longer than L-mark of aridus 45% cf 39% to nipple on humeral stripe - here I measured it as 38%.
Female analis abdomen 8,9,10 light-dark boundary horizontal more-or-less cf aridus which slopes up - here that part of the tail slopes up which makes it a bit harder to see, but in photo #2, light colour of segment 9 slopes up toward tail tip". It shows how similar the females are of this genus.

Copyright © 2016-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 03-Nov-2016
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.