Siberian Bluet
(Coenagrion hylas)

The Siberian Bluet is one of Europe's prettiest, rarest and most localized Coenagrion species. It is a large, dark, robust and heavy-looking damselfly. Outside its main range in Siberia, Coenagrion hylas only occurs at a handful of sites in Austria. Apart from the species' large size, its main distinguishing features include the large round postocular spots, the thick black lines which run along the sides of the abdomen, and the female's tri-coloured body (greenish yellow, black and blue). The species has a reputation for being a bit lethargic, but on the one warm and sunny day we managed to photograph it, we observed the same frantic sexual activity as other species display on such days.

For an overview of the Siberian Bluet'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.