Thank you all for the kind comments.
Mark... yes, the white stigmas indicate that this individual is a female.
Most odonates (i.e. dragonflies and damselflies) show sexual differences in coloration. As is often seen with birds, male odes are generally more brightly colored than the females. Although, in the case of ebony jewelwings this difference is fairly minor as our photographs show.
One complication to identifying odes is that in some species the immature males are similar in color to females and only develop their distinctive coloration as they become sexually mature. This is the case with the blue dashers. In order to telling an immature male blue dasher from a female, one needs to look at traits other than their coloration. In this case, and as is often the case, the shape of the abdomen is diagnostic.
--- Frank
