TERRITORIAL BEHAVIOR OF A RAIN-FOREST DRAGONFLY NOTIOTHEMIS-ROBERTSI (ODONATA, LIBELLULIDAE) - PROPOSED FUNCTIONS OF SPECIFIC BEHAVIORAL-PATTERNS

The behaviour of this rainforest dragonfly was studied in the Kakamega Forest, West Kenya. Seven different activities were distinguished: pe rching, sun-flights, patrolling, inspection, interspecific, intraspeci fic, and sexual flights. Two-act sequences of these behaviours were an alysed and quantified to determine significant transition probabilitie s. Sun-flights into the tree canopies were the most common flight acti vity and followed any other behaviour significantly more often than ex pected. Coming back from a sun-flight, the males preferentially perche d or patrolled; after patrolling males typically perched. Most of the time the males spent perching in their territory (32% of total time in territory). Proposed functions of these territorial behavioural activ ities in Notiothemis robertsi are deduced from these results.