One of my roomies at BugShot (Suzanne “Buglady” Wainwright) is the most amazing bug finder! We were wandering around in the dark at Archbold one night looking for a weevil she wanted to photograph and she found this:
Darner in the dark
I’ll admit that I would have been very unlikely to come across this insect without the Buglady’s help, so thanks Suzanne! What a beautiful find.
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The Dragonfly Woman 
Your friend has really good eyes to see that green on green – it really blends into its environment!
Nancy
It was also dark, so she found it with a flashlight! I was so impressed.
That is one chilly Anax junius. I’ve never seen one with the blue parts of the abdomen such a deep violet. I hope he got some sun the next morning…
It wasn’t cold AT ALL. Quite the opposite in fact, hot and humid, even in the dark. The night I took this shot was the first night it had cooled down at all after it got dark (thanks to Hurricane Isaac headed our way), but it was still in the upper 70’s or low 80’s.
Okay, he just looks cold. I guess he simply turned down the dimmer for the night. ;-) But seriously, there’s always talk about lower temperatures affecting colors on odonates (usually blues), but it does seem like absence of light is a possible factor as well. I’ve always wondered about that, but I haven’t seen any relevant data. Of course, cooler temperatures typically coincide with reduced or absent sunlight, so which is the real factor (or it it’s both) may not be obvious. It would be pretty simple to test in a controlled environment.
Yeah, I was pretty shocked by the color on this one myself. It was beautiful! And if you ever do a study looking at temperature and lack of light impacting colors, I’d love to see the results. It’s always fun trying to tease environmental factors apart like that, but I’ve always been intrigued by how weather impacts behaviors and this seems to fit in nicely with my interests.