Petalura litorea Theischinger 1999
Coastal Petaltail
Family Austropetaliidae
George Flynn called his neighbours to come and see a huge dragonfly that had landed on the back stairs of his Red Rock house. They sent a couple of these photos to me for identification. I was very excited when I saw the photos as I knew immediately that it was one of the endangered Petaltail dragonflies.
In a previous Summer, I had seen a huge dragonfly fly past me slowly at eye height along the boardwalk, which I thought was a Petaltail dragonfly and now here was positive proof of them living nearby. Gunther Theischinger identified it as a Coastal Petaltail from photos and location. I have searched a couple of nearby swamps but haven’t found any Petaltails living there yet unfortunately.
On the 27th Of December 2019, we were fortunate to visit a swamp where I was very excited to see male Coastal Petaltails
having skirmishes over territory. There was also a pair mating while flying but I couldn’t find where they landed.
Just before we left the swamp, I spotted a female Coastal Petaltail. It was very co-operative and stayed in the same place while I went back to the car to fetch another SD card. It had very black eyes and had probably only recently emerged.