The common hawker, moorland hawker or sedge darner (''Aeshna juncea'') is one of the larger species of hawker dragonflies. It is native to

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

(from Ireland to Japan) and northern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. The flight period is from June to early October. It is long with a brown body. The male has a black abdomen with paired blue and yellow spots on each abdominal segment, and narrow stripes along the dorsal surface of the thorax. In the female, the abdomen is brown with yellow or sometimes green or blue spots. The wings of both sexes display a yellow costa (the major vein running along the leading edge of the wings). This species lacks the green thorax stripes of the southern hawker. Female common hawkers will sometimes dive out of the sky and

feign death Apparent death, colloquially known as playing dead, feigning death, or playing possum, is a behavior in which animals take on the appearance of being dead. It is an immobile state most often triggered by a predatory attack and can be found in a ...

in order to avoid copulating with males. Aeshna juncea hovering

References

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External links

* * Dragonflies of Europe Aeshnidae Insects described in 1758 Odonata of Asia Odonata of North America Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Aeshnidae-stub