The male Agriocnemis victoria (Coenagrionidae) is not included in the reference checklists for Ghana, whether in Neill and Paulson (2001) or Dijkstra (2013). Its presence was nonetheless mentioned in Pinhey (1974), not in the text where he reports the species' distribution, but in a table under the note "Ghana to S. Leone". However, as it was likely merely assumed, it was not retained later due to a lack of evidence. It is therefore a new species for Ghana!
All the photos were taken at the same pond, over an area of about 4 m², where young and adult males, as well as females, were trying to evade us.
JI therefore wanted to verify this identification using the anal appendages, which are shown in various documents. And to say the least, they vary depending on the author and the geography.
Below, I show the anal appendages of two individuals: one young, which I find consistent, and another mature, significantly less so.
Regardless of the shape of the appendages, which are indeed variable, what also surprised me is this red wedge with a forward-pointing tip on S8. On the individuals I encountered in Namibia and those I find on the web, on iNaturalist or observation.org, it is a black wedge with a distal point that marks S8. With the rest of the individual, the black and green patterns on the abdomen and thorax, and the pronotum all in agreement, I still believe it is Agriocnemis victoria. Moreover, the shape of the superior appendages is truly peculiar, and only those of A. forcipata (not known in Ghana and present at closest in Gabon or Cameroon) are similar, but those of the latter species are very strongly curved downward.
Currently, the species is known west of Ghana: in Liberia and suspected in Côte d'Ivoire. And east of Ghana, in Nigeria. Its presence was not proven in Ghana, Togo, or Benin. Discovering it in Ghana is therefore not surprising.
From Zambia and Senegal, its distribution extends to Cameroon—skipping the three mentioned countries—then south to Angola, reaching Uganda and Tanzania in the east.
IUCN Red List.
Fortunately, the appendages of this young male Agriocnemis victoria are fully consistent, and its coloration recalls that of the females of the species.
These forceps-like appendages and its small size have given it the English common name of Lesser Pincer-Tail Wisp.
I had therefore already encountered it in Namibia, and on the page dedicated to this species, I specified that Fraser, in his original description (1) of the species, gives an abdomen length of 16 mm; it would measure barely more than 20 mm in total! Agriocnemis forcipata is slightly larger.
It is a species of open areas, sometimes found in forests or on temporary pools. We observed it on a large pond at the edge of the forest, but as with all Agriocnemis I am familiar with, it stays near the edge in shallow water (unless chased away!), among emergent vegetation. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of this pond; I forgot, overwhelmed by its extreme richness in odonates: we recorded three new species for Ghana at this single body of water.
Below are the two female forms described by Fraser: the andromorph on the left, very similar to immature males, and the heteromorph on the right, blood-red, as he describes it.
Etymology of Agriocnemis victoria
Agriocnemis, from the Greek agrios—wild, meaning living in the fields—and knemis, which means greave or legging, as with our European Platycnemis. Selys believed the genera to be closely related with regard to their tibiae, which I do not observe at all. Those of Agriocnemis do not seem to me any wider than those of other Coenagrionidae. But "cnemis" in many compound genus names should rather be understood as "belonging to the Coenagrionidae" (see Endersby & Fliedner (2015)).
Victoria is a reference to the location of capture, Lake Victoria. Fraser wrote: "Distribution—Two males and two females, collected by Dr. G. Hale Carpenter on the north-west shores of Lake Victoria, Uganda, July—September, 1927."
Dijkstra, 2013 – A Rapid Biological Assessment of the Atewa Range Forest Reserve, Eastern Ghana:137-142. 2013 – Checklist of Odonata Recorded from Ghana – Conservation International.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B (editor ADDO), 2019 - African Dragonflies and Damselflies (ADDO) - Agriocnemis victoria - [Le lien peut ne pas fonctionner ; lien web.archive à partir du site ADDO, maintenant hors ligne.]
Fraser 1928 – Odonata of the African continent – Transactions Entomological Society London. [Le lien peut ne pas fonctionner ; lien web.archive à partir du site ADDO, maintenant hors ligne.]
Ian Endersby & Heinrich Fliedner, 2015 – The Naming of Australia’s Dragonflies, Ian Endersby & Heinrich Fliedner, Busybird publishing.
Neill et Paulson, 2001 – An annotated list of Odonata collected in Ghana in 1997, a checklist of Ghana Odonata, and comments on West African Odonate Biodiverity and Biogeography – March 2001 – Odonatologica 30(1):67-86
Pinhey, 1974 – A Revision of the African Agriocnemis Selys and Mortonagrion Fraser (Odonata : Coenagrionidae) – Occasional papers of the National Museums and Monuments of Rhodesia. [Le lien peut ne pas fonctionner ; lien web.archive à partir du site ADDO, maintenant hors ligne.]