Winter dragonflies
| Winter dragonflies | ||||||||||||
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Common winter dragonfly (Sympecma fusca) |
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| Sympecma | ||||||||||||
| Burmeister , 1839 | ||||||||||||
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The winter dragonflies ( Sympecma ) belong to the family of the pond damsel (Lestidae). The two Central European representatives of this genus are the only dragonflies native to Central Europe that overwinter as fully developed imago .
Appearance
The winter dragonflies reach a wingspan of four to 4.5 centimeters. The body is slender and relatively long, the color ranges from a light beige to brown. Unlike all other pond maidens, the winter dragonflies fold their wings directly on one side of their backs when they are not flying. The chest of the animals has two dark stripes. The upper stripe of the rarer Siberian winter dragonfly ( Sympecma paedisca ) has a small bulge that the common winter dragonfly ( Sympecma fusca ) lacks. The old, overwintered animals have bright deep blue eyes in spring.
Way of life
The winter dragonflies are the only Central European dragonflies that spend the winter as adults. In winter you can usually find them a little away from the water in various hiding places or in the vegetation. When the sun is strong, they sometimes come out, but otherwise they stay in their hiding places until April. The mating is similar to that of the other pond damsels, the female bites the eggs in tandem with the male in aquatic plants, with both animals sitting on the mat.
Larval development
The development from egg to imago takes place very quickly and lasts a maximum of about three months, of which about eight to ten weeks are spent in the larval stage.
species
Only two species can be found in Central Europe. The common winter dragonfly ( Sympecma fusca ) is far more common , and its range covers the entire area of Western and Central Europe. In contrast, the Siberian winter dragonfly ( Sympecma paedisca ) can only be found in the lakes of northeast Germany and in the Alpine foothills; its main distribution is in Eastern Europe and Asia.
The third species of the genus, Sympecma gobica , was often confused or misunderstood before it was re-described in 1993. She lives in Central Asia, west to north of Iran. It can be distinguished from the other two types by the black markings on the sides of the thorax. Like these, she hibernates as an imago.
literature
- H. Bellmann: Observe dragonflies - determine. Naturbuch Verlag, Augsburg 1993, ISBN 3-89440-107-9 .
- G. Jurzitza: The Kosmos dragonfly guide . Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-440-08402-7 .
- K. Sternberg, R. Buchwald: Dragonflies in Baden-Württemberg. Volume 2: Dragonflies (Anisoptera). Eugen Ulmer Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3514-0 .
- HJ Dumont, SN Borisov (1993): Three, not two species in the genus Sympecma (Odonata: Lestidae). Bulletin & annales de la Société royale belge d'entomologie 129 (1-3): 31-40.
- Dietmar Ikemeyer, Elias Schneider, Jacob Schneider, Thomas Schneider (2015): Records of Odonata in North- and North-East Iran including Sympecma gobica (Förster, 1900) as a new species for Iran. Entomological Journal 125 (3): 147-152.
- VJ Kalkman (2006): Key to the dragonflies of Turkey including species known from Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Syria, the Trans-Caucasus and Iran. Brachytron 10 (1): 3-82.