Grote tanglibel
(Onychogomphus uncatus)

The Large Pincertail is indeed marginally bigger than its stable mate the Small Pincertail (Onychogomphus forcipatus). In terms of distribution, Onychogomphus uncatus is very much the rarer and more localized species; it only occurs in the Western-Mediterranean countries, and even there it's usually outnumbered by O. forcipatus. In fact, in three years of searching, we've only managed to find one stream nearby where O. uncatus is the more numerous of the two and where it occurs in good numbers. The species' most distinguishing features include its bright-blue eyes (as opposed to O. forcipatus' grey-to-green eyes), and the relatively wide, parallel black stripes on the side of the thorax.

For an overview of the Large Pincertail'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).

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