Blue damselfly
The blue damselfly is a slim, shiny damselfly from New Zealand. The grown-up male is dark with bright blue stripes, while females and young males are glittering green. It is the biggest damselfly in New Zealand.
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Fun facts
It is the only blue dragonfly or damselfly in all of New Zealand. In the Māori language it is called kekewai.
The female cuts a little hole in a floating plant stem and lays 6 to 9 eggs inside it.
From egg to grown-up takes about two years.
It is the main damselfly living in cold mountain pools, so it must be good at handling the cold.
Most asked questions about Blue damselfly
?Where does the blue damselfly live?
Only in New Zealand, all over the country, near water.
?How big is the blue damselfly?
Its body is about 4.5 centimetres long and its wings are about 5.5 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Austrolestes colensonis
- Named by
- White, 1846
- Group
- Dragonflies and damselflies
- Family
- Lestidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Odonata > Lestidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Austrolestes colensonis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Kane Fleury. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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