Blue-Eyed Hawker
(Aeshna affinis)

The Blue-Eyed Hawker is a relatively small aeshnid. It's a Southern European species which seems to be gradually extending its range Northwards. Aeshna affinis is particularly associated with lakes and wetlands which dry up in the course of the summer. Our most productive site for this species, the Lago della Rotonda in Basilicata in the South of Italy, holds a hundreds-strong population. Apart from its choice of habitat, the species' distinguishing features include the male's bright blue eyes and black-and-blue abdomen (brown and yellow in the female), the thinly-striped yellow sides of the thorax, the male's hovering flight, and the species' habit of ovipositing in tandem.

For an overview of the Blue-Eyed Hawker's distribution in Europe, hover your mouse pointer over the map symbol .
With the authors' permission we have based this map on data published in Kalkman et al. (2010).
Legend: Red = Occurs, White = Doesn't occur; Purple = Extinct; Yellow = Vagrant.

Hover your mouse pointer over a thumbnail below to display a larger version of it. Or click on a thumbnail to display the photograph (at 1050 x 700 pixels) in a new window. And then, if you'd like to get even closer, you can drag the ZoomBox from the top-left corner of that window across the photograph. Note that you may have to refresh the window manually (by pressing F5 on your keyboard) for the ZoomBox to display correctly.