Number: 241 / Family: Platystictidae / Genus: Protosticta
Species: Protosticta jirapornae / Jiraporn's Reedtail*
Province(s) sighted: Chaing Mai
Habitat: Forested Streams in Low Vegetation
In flight: July / Sightings (by me): Rare
Species easily confused with: All Protosticta Species
*As there is no common name, I have named it after the Thai translation and used 'Reedtail' as several species in the genus are named so.
One species I actually went to see in Chaing Mai was a newly-named species in the genus Protosticta. It was described by Noppadon Makbun and he named it Protosticta jirapornae, after his mentor, who had helped him so much while he was studying at university. What was even more exciting, when we went to the area where it can be found, we also met up with the person it was actually named after as she also wanted to see it in life. It was a wonderful experience but the day almost turned sour as it wasn't the best of days and numbers of odes were very low. Even worse was finding a specimen that decided to fly high up into the trees before we had a chance to look at it properly. Fortunately, as I was chasing another species, I just saw that little tiny white tip moving and, upon confirmation from Nopaddon, I got in a few nice shots and Jiraporn happily got photos of it too!
The Male
It's a typical male that is identifiable upon inspection of the appendages. This was quite a small species, but now has a name.
Many thanks to Noppadon for leading me to it and to Jiraporn for being such wonderful company!
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