Blue-spotted Hawker - Adversaeschna brevistyla
FAMILY AESHNIDAE
- Female, body length 65mm
This page contains information and pictures about Blue-spotted Hawker Dragonflies that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
This is a large dragonfly with bright-blue pattern on black, with two prominent blue stripes on each sides of the thorax. Notice the two large blue spots and the "cat face" pattern on the back near the wings base. The leading edge of all wings are pale orange in colour. Its scientific name was Aeshna brevistyla and changed to Adversaeschna brevistyla lately.
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- Male, body length 65mm
- Male and female look similar except male has the angulated hindwings and female has the round hindwings. They are strong flier, they favours still waters nut are also found on slowly flowing streams. Females lay eggs into plant tissue or sometimes into soft mud.
- In mid-summer, we took the about male photo in Karawatha Forest near the Scrubby Creek late in the afternoon. We think this is the Unicorn Darner. A visitor from Sydney sent us email advised it is a Blue-spotted Hawker. This dragonfly is much more common than the Unicorn Darner and breeds in any permanent body of water, even artificial ones like farm dams and garden pools.
- Female
- We believe we saw this dragonfly many times in the Karawatha Forest, although every time was not so sure. This dragonfly usually hides in the shade on stem as the above left picture. Every time we saw it was when we walked pass it without noticed it, and it flied away fast within a second. We only found it once closely before it noticed us, and we took some better photos.
- Photo by Jo McHenry, Brisbane
- Jo McHenry email us the above picture and tell us: "Today we saw the most amazing dragonfly. It was the biggest I've seen with clear zebra striping. It rested on the verandah for about five minutes then took off incredibly fast in a straight line as I turned the plant around for the third time for a better shot."
- Reference and Link:
- 1. The Australian Dragonflies - Watson, J.A.L., Theischinger, G., Abbey, H.M. 1991, CSIRO Publications, pp 178.
- 2. A Field Guide to Dragonflies of South East Queensland - Ric Nattrass, 2006, p55.
- 3. The Complete Field Guide to Dragonflies of Australia - CSIRO, Günther Theischinger and John Hawking, 2006, p148.
- 4. Aeshna brevistyla - Australian Insect Common Names, CSIRO, 2005.
- 5. Aeshna (Adversaeschna) brevistyla - Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment and Heritage2005.
- 6. Adversaeschna brevistyla - Blue-spotted Hawker - VICTORIAN DRAGONFLIES.
- 7. Aeshna brevistyla - Blue-spotted Hawker - Deniss Reeves, Austrolestes-Newsletter of Australian Dragonfly Society, #7, 2003.
