We spent a week in Key West. Despite seeing relatively little non-human wildlife, we enjoyed our visit. It did not help that January is a poor time to look for dragonflies, even as far south as Key West. On 24 January 2018, we visited the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Gardens. The park was in rugged shape as a result of the previous fall’s hurricane. We did find a few red dragonflies defending territories around the edges of the small garden ponds.
The Antillean Skimmer is a dragonfly without a name. The species is yet to be described. The dragonfly occurs from southernmost Florida through the Greater Antilles. Dragonflies looking identical to Antillean Skimmers are also found in Central and South America. The mainland dragonflies, however, have different mitochondrial DNA. Scientists don’t seem to know how to handle these populations—nor do they know their exact ranges. For now, the Antillean Skimmer is known as Orthemis sp. To make matters even more confusing, Antillean Skimmers have been thought to be a red form of Roseate Skimmers in the literature (Paulson 2011 and pers. com).
The Antillean and the Roseate seem impossible to tall apart! Wikipedia (for what it's worth) says the Antillean has a range from Florida to Brazil.
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