Sombre Goldenring
(Cordulegaster bidentata)

One of seven European Goldenring species, the Sombre Goldenring is typically darker, a bit smaller and definitely rarer than the more common Cordulegaster boltonii. Cordulegaster bidentata is a Central and Southern European species with a patchy distribution as far South as Italy and Greece. Unlike its congeners Cordulegaster boltonii and C. trinacriae, C. bidentata is a very difficult species to photograph; it seems to be always on the move and only twice have we ever managed to photograph a male at rest. Update: As of July 2009, this situation has very much improved and we now have some wonderful photos of the species on display. [By way of a further update, in June 2011 we managed to photograph two immature males at rest; see below]. The species' main distinguishing features include the black (rather than yellow) occipital triangle, and the absence of the narrower golden rings on S5-S8. In all Goldenring species, the female lays her eggs by dipping her abdomen repeatedly in wet mud (or moss, etc.) in a pneumatic drill fashion. For an overview of the key differences between the species of the boltonii-complex and those of the bidentata-complex, hover your mouse pointer here.

For an overview of the Sombre Goldenring'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).

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.