Common Winter Damsel
(Sympecma fusca)

The Common Winter Damsel is one of only two European species which overwinter as adults. It's a medium-sized, drab brown-and-creamy-white damselfly, and it's common and widely distributed throughout Europe except the British Isles and Scandinavia. When at rest, Sympecma fusca folds its four wings together along one side of its abdomen, in which case the long and narrow pterostigmas in the front wings are aligned in front of those in the rear wings (rather than on top of them). The species also has the typical habit of whipping its abdomen up and down a few times when alighting. Its most distinctive physical feature, really, is its drab, nondescript coloration.

For an overview of the Common Winter Damsel'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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