Thin tail elegant

Latin elegans - elegant, refined, beautiful. The name emphasizes the light, elegant build and beautiful body color ^[1] .

Length 30-34 mm, abdomen 24-29 mm, rear wing 16-18 mm ^[2] . The head is wide, twice as wide as its top. The forehead is rounded. The color of the head is black. On the back of the head there are two light rounded spots. In females and males, the eighth segment of the abdomen is blue, and the ninth is black. The belly is bronze-black, the articulations of the dorsal half-rings are yellow, the VIII ring, the sides I-II and bottom of the VII-IX segments of the abdomen are blue, the sides and the bottom of III-VI segments are yellow. The posterior margin of the pronotum is raised in the middle and protrudes upward in the form of a comb. The legs are not extended. Pterostigma on all wings of almost the same size, narrow (takes 1 cell). The legs are black or dark gray.

Male: chest blue, top has a wide dark longitudinal strip and narrower stripes on the sides. The abdomen is black, with narrow bands, at the end with a large blue spot ("lantern"). The wings are transparent. Pterostigma in males is two-colored: black at base, light on top. The eighth segment is entirely blue, IX is black. Young, recently emerged from the larvae, males have a light green color of the thoracic. Mature males are colored bright blue.

Female: Pterostigma on front wings in varying degrees, two-tone, partly light. Anal appendages black. For females, age-related color changes are more complex. They have a highly developed polyformism. There are 3 main types:

• A-type (andromorphic or isomorphic). At the juvenile age, they are characterized by a lilac or orange breast and the base of the abdomen with a well-defined pre-shoulder strap. In the future, they acquire a bright green or blue color, characteristic of males, and acquire their characteristic “lantern” at the end of the abdomen.
• B-type (transient). At the juvenile age, they are characterized by a lilac breast and the beginning of the abdomen, also by a well-pronounced black shoulder band. As they grow older, they acquire an olive-green or brown color, without a blue spot ("lantern") at the end of the abdomen.
• C-type (heteromorphic or typically heteromorphic). At the juvenile age, they are characterized by a pink or orange breast and the base of the abdomen without a shoulder band. In adulthood, their color is brown or green, without a blue spot (“flashlight”) at the end of the abdomen ^[2] .

Andromorphic and gynomorphic females undergo a sequence of color changes from violet to blue or olive in about 10 days, and puberty reaches 5-6 days from the time of departure from the larva ^[3] .

West Central Palaearctic temperate species. Temperate zone of Europe, Crimea, Western and Central Siberia, North Africa, Western and Central Asia ^[4] .

In Ukraine, it is registered in Transcarpathia, in Kiev, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions ^[5] .

Years: end of May - mid September. The species inhabits almost any type of both standing and flowing water bodies, including brackish ones, but it does not tolerate too acidic waters and oligotrophic marshes ^[2] : lakes, ponds, ditches, deep puddles, marshes, slow flowing rivers, streams, old women with rich aquatic vegetation. Body color of the larvae also varies greatly, may be yellowish, brownish, greenish, greenish-gray. The body of the larva is slightly elongated, covered with spines. Body length 23-26 mm.

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  Mating pair form typica

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  Female form violacea

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  Female form rufescens

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  Samform infuscans

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  Mating couple, female form typica

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  Mating couple, female form infuscans-obsoleta

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  Mating couple, female form violacea

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  Nymph