Coeliccia uenoi Asahina, 1997

Coeliccia uenoi is a large-sized Coeliccia species I have seen 2 or 3 times at Cuc Phuong National Park (Ninh Binh Province, northern Vietnam, 120 km southwest of Hanoi), and only males.

The male is colored black and blue with striking yellow last abdominal segments and appendages. 

Prothorax entirely black.
Synthorax black, both sides being striped with three broad azure blue markings. The mesepisternum bears a pair of patches covering about 2/3 of its length.
Abdomen black from S1 to S8, segments 3-6 provided with pale terminal ring. Two terminal segments dull yellow, each with a dark ventral marking.

Frontal view ot the synthorax showing the
particular shape of the 2 patches

Caudal appendages dull yellowish, superiors much shorter than the inferiors.
In the superior appendages, ending in an angulated head (in dorsal view), the usual ventral spine is situated at about 2/3 of their length.
Inferior appendages with an incurved tip.

Lateral view

Dorso-lateral view

Coeliccia uenoi is a "speciality" of Cuc Phuong National Park. Discovered in 1995 by a team from Tokyo Science Museum, this species has never been recorded outside the park's boundaries.

Established in 1962, Cuc Phuong is the oldest National Park in Vietnam. It protect one of the few remaining primary lowland forests of the country. Once covered much of Vietnam up to elevation of 600-700 m, these forests are now rare and greatly threatened because their accessibility places them under the greatest pressure from exploitation, agriculture and development. The vast majority of them are replaced now by scrub and secondary forest.

The photo above show the place where I saw one individual (August 2012) : a flat, shallow, slow-flowing stream under heavy tree cover (at ca. 350m).
Many streams of this limestone karst forest area dry up during the dry season - I don`t know if it is the case of this one.

I also observed along this stream some Coeliccia scutellum and many individuals of a recently described Coeliccia that I don't know the scientific name yet (article not yet published in the International Journal of Odonatology). Post about this Coeliccia sp. will come soon!