Gynacantha dohrni 晏蜓 Spear-tail Duskhawker

This is South East Asia species found commonly only in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Borneo Island.

Found in many swampy forested areas. These individuals in this page were found in Bukit Gemok of Sabah. Becomes active at dusk and often enter farm houses near by with bright light.

Found in forest undergrowth around the vicinity of forest pools or streams where it hides in the shade and perch motionlessly on vertical twig during the day. It becomes active at dusk. Gynacantha dohrni pairs do mat at night.

Male has green eyes and thorax. . It has a T-shaped marking on the top of the fron. Wings are mainly clear. Abdomen is dark with flecks of green markings.

Females generally are quite similar to males in term of color and markings. The wings are rounder and the appendages are often broken off due to mating or ovipositing. Females are found to breed in forest pools and sometimes they even ovipositing their eggs into rock, or mud crevices, from my observation.

The pale, narrowly triangular, inferior anal appendage is less than one third the length of the long thin superiors, which are very slightly distally expanded with a small hook at the tip.

Male’s superior appendages are spear-shaped towards the tip when view from top. Inferior appendage is short and pale in color.

The pale, narrowly triangular, inferior anal appendage with a small hook at the tip.

Inferior anal appendage is less than one third the length of the long thin superiors appendage. The superiors are very slightly distally expanded.

The 3 families of dragonflies found in Borneo Island:

1 Family of Aeshnidae

Insects are diverse and dominant inhabitants of the tropical rainforests in Borneo Island. New species are discovered too often. Entomologists are still struggling to cope with the documentation of tropical insect diversity.

Most of the common dragonflies in Sabah are red coloured, especially from the family Libellulidae. Some red pecies are even confused as same species, for example the three species of Genus Neurothemis.

Dragonflies and damselflies have large compound eyes that can see in all directions. When the compound eye is magnified several hundred times, each individual facet (ommatidium) is shown to be hexagonal in shape.

Female dragonflies have either one of the two method of depositing eggs from the abdomen:
1- using Ovipositor Structure
2- using Vulvar Lamina

Male do not have an ovipositor. Instead male dragonfly and damselfly have appendages.

GO FURTHER

FLORA

Fig trees of Sabah

Borneo has 150 species of wild fig trees. Most of them are found in forests of Sabah.

FISHERIES

Tiger Prawn Farms in Tawau

Prawn farming is a main commercial activities in Tawau. Spawners from Tawau are graded the best in Malaysia. For decades, Tawau has been exporting high-grade tiger prawns to several countries such as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Egypt and Australia.