Insect Ecology Group member Sarah Luke and her collaborator Rory Dow have discovered a species of dragonfly that is new to science during work at the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) Project in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. It is the first time this species has ever been found, and the first species within its genus, Phaenandrogomphus, to be recorded within the island of Borneo. It has been named formally as Phaenandrogomphus safei after the SAFE Project – the research project and site where it was found - and given the common name ‘the SAFE clawtail’ because of the distinctive claw-like appendages at the end of its abdomen.

A single male was found at one of the SAFE Project streams during standardised dragonfly transect samplings conducted by Sarah Luke as part of her PhD work studying freshwater macroinvertebrates. The dragonfly is a small member of the family Gomphidae and has a mainly black thorax and abdomen, with pale green stripes.

Left: Phaenandrogomphus safei in the field. Top right: Phaenandrogomphus safei holotype. Bottom right: Phaenandrogomphus safei head, dorsal view. Photo credits Sarah Luke and Rory Dow.

The discovery of this dragonfly also sheds light on the taxonomy of another gomphid species, Onychogomphus treadawayi. The most morphologically similar species to the new Phaenandrogomphus safei is not in fact any mainland Phaenandrogomphus species, but actually O.treadawayi which is known from a single male specimen found in the Philippines. It has therefore been decided that O.treadawayi should be reclassified within the genus Phaenandrogomphus.

This is the first new species described from the SAFE Project – a large, long-term study monitoring the impacts of forest disturbance and fragmentation on ecosystems – but it is hoped that as work continues at the site more of Borneo’s unknown fauna will be discovered. First author, Rory Dow said:  “Discoveries such as this demonstrate how much there is still to learn about the dragonfly fauna of Borneo. Very large areas of Borneo have never been systematically surveyed, or in many cases surveyed at all, for dragonflies; it is very likely that there are numerous discoveries still to be made.”

However, Dow also commented that “habitat is being changed by human activities at a rapid rate across Borneo, so that time may be running out for many of these fascinating insects, whilst at the same time there is an almost total lack of funding for the kind of survey work needed to find them, and the taxonomic work needed to identify and describe them.”

The type specimen will be deposited at the Forest Research Centre, Sepilok – a research institution in Sabah. The paper discussing this discovery “Phaenandrogomphus safei, a new species from Sabah, northern Borneo (Odonata: Anisoptera: Gomphidae)” written by Rory A Dow and Sarah H Luke is published open access in the journal Zootaxa and is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3905.1.10