Orthetrum brachiale
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
Orthetrum brachiale, the tough skimmer or strong skimmer, is a species of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae. It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Réunion, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, possibly Burundi, and possibly São Tomé and Príncipe. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, dry savanna, moist savanna, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, shrub-dominated wetlands, swamps, intermittent freshwater lakes, freshwater marshes, and intermittent freshwater marshes. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lusaka | 🇿🇲 Zambia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Banded Skimmer sighting in Lusaka on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 46th most-seen of the 72 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Banded Skimmer in Lusaka on a given day, against under 5% in June to December, the lowest months. That is one of Lusaka's driest months, with about 30 mm of rain against 210 mm in January.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Banded Skimmer sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Lusaka, in our data
Lusaka is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Banded Skimmer sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Libellulidae
The closest relatives of the Banded Skimmer that you can see in Lusaka (family Libellulidae, Skimmers) are Wandering Glider (about 40%), Orange-Winged Dropwing (about 30%) and Red-Veined Dropwing (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Banded Skimmer is recorded against all the insects logged in Lusaka (7 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
