Cordulegaster bidentata

[MichalR]

Hello,

Recently i had a chance to be in the mountains and had some luck to find the species which is not usual on the flat terrain - Cordulegaster bidentata. Its the female, totaly black, so photographing it in the forest requires a lot of light which is usually not available there. To give some light to this picture i had to use a blende and a longer time of exposure to lighten the blackness of the specimen. Very beautiful species, living in the mountains only, someone called it a Ninja due to the black and yellow colors Enjoy.

regards,
Michal

[der_kex]

Hi Michal,
it is soooo hard to find female Cordulegaster individuals. To find C. bidentata is even less likely than C. boltonii here in Germany.
So to me your find is a great one ... never seen them perched, only at oviposition. So it is great that you share your capture
with us. The quality is amazing and it shows a lot of details due to the enormous presentation size of that shy insect. Great job!

[MichalR]

Hello,

Thanks for the interest. Definitely a hard species to find, in Poland as well. As i mentioned, its mountain-only species, so the terrain you can find it on is quite restricted to some areas. I found it during the mountain trip, the day was rainy so the specimen just sat on the plant in the forest waiting the weather to be better. Firstly i thought its dead, due to lack of movement, but it was alive. I took them together with the plant few meters to find better conditions to photograph, especially to find a better light, so it started to move slowly. Took few pictures and left it alone. Nice find anyway, im glad i was able to take some pictures in good quality, it was not that easy

Best,
Michal