Erythromma najas

Erythromma najas, mating pair

A very nice species with deep blue colour and clearly red eyes. It really looks that the damselfly did stay to long in the pub the night beforeJ. Mostly found in lakes, but can sometimes be found in strums. It is almost always resting on the leaves of water lily. It is a real nightmare to photograph, as it prefers to be sitting on the leaves that are most far from the shoreline. Best chance for photo is to use a boat or a bridge. One time I spent four hours in a boat to get the photo shown above. I anchored the boat and waited until the damselfly landed on the water lily leafs close to the boat.

Key characteristics

The clearly red eyes can be spotted from several meters distance. Male: The last segments of the abdomen is blue, rest of the body is dark. Female: Shape of protorax is the best characteristic; one needs to compare with a good key. As the species most often is in large numbers one will most of the time find males to avoid the problems of checking the protorax shape. C. najas could be mixed up he the new Swedish species E. viridulum that is smaller and has less clear red colour on the eyes.

In air

June until August. Occurs in most parts of Sweden with exemption for the mountainous regions.

Page updated Augsut 11 2009
Copyright © 2004-2008 Martin Peterson