New records of polymorphism in Asian libellulid dragonflies (Insecta: Odonata)

Abstract

Polymorphism has rarely been reported from dragonflies of the Libellulidae (Odonata: Anisoptera) family. Here, we report female-limited polymorphism in females of five species of the Libellulidae and a gynandromorph male of Brachythemis contaminata from South Asia. We describe the morphological variation between andromorph and heteromorph females, and collate records of andromorph females from various sources. Yearly number of andromorph females of Crocothemis servilia, Urothemis signata and Neurothemis tullia was calculated using records from published literature and unpublished sources, and social media.

Keywords:

• polymorphism
• andromorph
• gynandromorph
• Crocothemis
• Urothemis
• Neurothemis
• servilia
• signata
• India
• citizen science
• dragonfly

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank all the people who uploaded their records on various portals and inspired studies (listed in Appendix). We would like to thank Vijay Barve for his help with analysis; Matti Hämäläinen for helping trace the synonymy of Urothemis signata; Heinrich Fleidner for help with translations; and the Veino family for their hospitality. Additionally, we thank Chirag Parmar, Indushekhar Sharma, Rajesh Sanap and Sagar Sarang for allowing us to use their images in the manuscript.