Calopteryx splendens subsp. syriaca, Rambur, 1842

K. J. Morton, 1924, The Dragon-flies (Odonata) of Palestine, based primarily on collection made by Dr. P. A. Buxton, with Notes on the Species of the Adjacent Regions., Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 1924, pp. 25-44 : 27-28

Galopteryx splendens syriaca Ramb.

Kabri , Akka, ♂ ♂♀ ♀, 9.vi. 21; Amman , Transjordania, ♀ (sub-juv), 6.iii. 22; Dog River , Beirut, ♀ (sub-juv), 28.iii.22 ; Lake Huleh , Q, 24 x22 ; Nahr es Zerka , ♀ ♀, 31.iv. 23 ; also from Dr. Ris a series of both sexes from “ Dead Sea ” (collector Schwabel), vi. 1918.

Length of hind-wing 28 to 30 mm. or slightly over, the opaque apical portion in ♂ 10 to 12 mm.; mostly 29: 11 mm.

Selys (l.c. p. 40) says “ ♀. Ailes hyalines, le tiers terminal des inférieures légèrement et insensiblement enfumé. ” The localities given by him are Beirut, Damascus and Galilee. In the Palestine females the apical sufusion is slight, indefinite in extent and little different from the rest of the wing when present at all. In a series in my collection from Beirut (Rolle), however, some of the females have the apical third, or a little less, dark brown, this dark space being rather sharply defined, while others approach the Palestine females. Of two females from Palestine (Staudinger), unfortunately without more exact data, one is similar to the dark Beirut ♀, While the other has no appreciable suffusion at the apex. A ♂ from the

same source is rather large, h.-w. 31 mm., dark apex 13 mm.

Martin (Z.C. p. 213) has described, under the name of Calopteryx splendens hyalina , a series taken by Gadeau de Kerville at lac de Homs and in a marsh ah Damascus in May, with the wings entirely limpid or tinted with yellowish without any trace of blue. The specimens were immature. Martin considers that the absence of pigment was not due t o their immature condition, and states that European C. splendens of the same age and those of the race syriaca and other races have always upon their wings an indication of the part which later will be blue or brown. Damascus is quoted by Selys as one of the localities for syriaca . No males of hyalina have come under my notice, and I do not know whether any mature males have ever been taken.