''Aethiothemis carpenteri'' is a species of

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

in the family

Libellulidae The skimmers or perchers and their relatives form the Libellulidae, the largest dragonfly family in the world. It is sometimes considered to contain the Corduliidae as the subfamily Corduliinae and the Macromiidae as the subfamily Macromiinae. Ev ...

. It was originally described as ''Oxythemis carpenteri'', named in honor of the collector of the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

, G. D. Hale Carpenter. The name is considered by some authorities to be a

taxonomic synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnae ...

of '' Aethiothemis solitaria'', though the taxonomy of the ''solitaria''

species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

is not clear.Clausnitzer, V., F. Suhling, & K.-D. Dijkstra. 2009. ''Aethiothemis solitaria''. In: IUCN 2011. ''IUCN Red List of Threatened Species'', Version 2011.1., http://oldredlist.iucnredlist.org/details/59792/0, downloaded on 30 July 2011.

References

Insects described in 1944 Insects of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Libellulidae Taxa named by Frederic Charles Fraser {{dragonfly-stub

See also

References