A breeding population of Orthetrum ransonnetii (Desert Skimmer, Desert Basker, Ransonnet's Skimmer, etc.) is here reported from 1 500–1 800 m in the granite mountains of north-western Saudi Arabia in early February 2024. This eremic species has a vast range in the arid regions from the Canary Islands across North Africa and Arabia to south-west Asia, but its occurrence is patchy, with long series of records from the Dead Sea Rift Valley and the Sinai Peninsula, the Hajar Mountains of the United Arab Emirates and northern Oman, and the north-west and central Sahara in Morocco and Algeria, but limited records from the remainder of its range and only a single previous record from Saudi Arabia. The wintertime high-elevation records discussed here fill a large observational gap within the species' distribution range and provide additional evidence for the recently recognised ecological plasticity of the species.