Body length is usually about 40–45 mm.
Fine-art photographic collection
Orthetrum brunneum
A powder-blue dragonfly that thrives where disturbance repeatedly resets streams and pools to bare ground.
About this species
Southern Skimmer
Orthetrum brunneum(Fonscolombe, 1837)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Orthetrum brunneum is a southern skimmer associated with warm shallow waters, especially slow trickles, ditches, quarries and pioneer pools. Mature males become blue over the face, thorax and abdomen and defend open waterside territories.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Odonata · Libellulidae · Orthetrum
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
southern and central Europe, North Africa and western to central AsiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
southern and central Europe, North Africa and western to central Asia
Warm shallow streams, seepages, ditches and newly created pools with patches of bare mineral substrate.
Adults fly in sunny weather from late spring through summer.
Adults catch flying insects; aquatic larvae prey on small invertebrates.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
A mature male becomes powder-blue not only across the abdomen but over the thorax and even the face, producing an unusually complete colour transformation.
The species often colonises freshly disturbed water bodies, then declines when vegetation closes the bare sunny margins it needs.
Its European range has moved northwards, and new breeding populations have appeared well beyond the old Mediterranean stronghold.