We always get excited when a new species turns up on our reserves so last week when a photo of a possible Red-eyed Damselfly was emailed through it certainly got my attention. The photo was of an immature male, something I’d not seen before but after a few emails we got confirmation that it was indeed the said species! It was found and photographed by Allan Neilson who runs out Butterfly transects at Radipole but luckily he’s always on the lookout for other species as well as the butterflies of course. Here’s his picture of the Red-eyed Damselfly. It will have red eyes once it matures!
Last year he found yet another new species of Dragonfly for the reserve, a Scarce Chaser. Further to Allans two new species, I’ve added Small Red-eyed Damselfly, Hairy Dragonfly and Lesser Emperor to our Radipole species list in the last few years. A decent achievement considering there isn’t that many species that occur in the UK. I think from here on in it’s going to get somewhat trickier to find new species of this particular group of insects!