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Desert whitetail females (Plathemis subornata)        Images © Mark A. Chappell

Male desert whitetails are well-named, with a large, pale abdomen and a large central black spot in each wing.   Females, like these, are very different, with black-and-yellow abdomens and three black spots per wing.   I took the pictures with a long telephoto lens on a scrubby alkali flat near Bishop, California.

  • Canon 7D; Canon 800 mm IS lens plus 1.4X extender and extension tubes, fill-in flash (2013)