Libellula quadrimaculata

Male four-spotted chasers are active insects and spend long periods of time hawking over the water and surrounding vegetation, both hunting for other insects and marking out their territories. They appear from late May until August, and must mate and reproduce during this short season. Mating takes place on the wing and the females then hover over the water surface, dropping her eggs which sink down to adhere to submerged vegetation. As with other Odonata species, the larvae of the four-spotted chaser live for about two years amongst the vegetation and muddy debris at the bottom of their pond. They are voracious predators of other water creatures. When they have grown to a large enough size they climb up the stems of emergent vegetation before completing their transformation into adults.

The four spotted chaser is a large dragonfly, not generally found in the coastal region. However, there are years during the migration period in May-June that hundreds of thousands of four spotted chasers appear in the coastal area and above the North Sea. Some people have reported seeing millions of these dragonflies. Almost all of them end up dying.

This dragonfly gets its name form the four dark spots present at the midpoint of the front of each of its four wings. Unusually for this family, males and females are much alike in appearance; the basic colouration is dark honey-brown, with a paler scalloped edge to both sides of the abdomen. The tip of the abdomen is black. Some members of the family Libellula tend to have fatter abdomens than other Odonata species. Several other male species in the family have noticeably blue upper sides to the abdomen, especially the broad-bodied chaser Libellula depressa.

Libellula quadrimaculata has a wide range and occurs from Europe and Morocco to Kamchatka and Japan, and to Canada and the USA. The species is widespread and common across most of its range, but becomes scarcer towards the south.

occurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations

Canada

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Four-spotted chasers are found throughout the British Isles, including the Scottish Islands and Ireland. Their range covers much of Europe and Northern Asia and extends into North America.

Habitat and Ecology

Systems

• Freshwater

This species can usually be found around most water bodies, including pools, rivers and upland lakes and lochs.

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 9
Specimens with Barcodes: 31
Species With Barcodes: 1

The following is a representative barcode sequence, the centroid of all available sequences for this species.

There are 3 barcode sequences available from BOLD and GenBank.  Below is a sequence of the barcode region Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI or COX1) from a member of the species.  See the BOLD taxonomy browser for more complete information about this specimen and other sequences.

Download FASTA File

Year Assessed

Assessor/s

Reviewer/s

Contributor/s

Justification

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure

Common in the UK

Population

Population Trend

Major Threats

This species appears to be common and widespread throughout the UK and, provided that clean water and marginal vegetation are available, there appear to be no special threats to its survival.

Conservation Actions

There are currently no conservation projects for this species in the UK.