Black Pennant
(Selysiothemis nigra)

The Black Pennant wasn't known to occur here in Tuscany until we found and photographed it in July 2005. It's a very small dragonfly with a disproportionately large head. Selysiothemis nigra is a rare species in Europe with a very patchy distribution in Greece, the Balkans, Italy and Iberia. Mature males are uniformly black in colour, although they do develop a whitish pruinescence on their thorax and abdomen. Immature males and females have a sandy-brown thorax and abdomen with extensive black markings. The species' most distinguishing features are the size of the wings (they're very large and broad for such a small dragonfly) and the shape of the pterostigma, which resembles an equals sign.

For an overview of the Black Pennant'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.

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