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FAMILY
Diphlebiidae
- This page contains information and pictures about Sapphire Rockmaster Damselflies that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
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- Male, body length 50mm, male
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- Sapphire Rockmasters are large damselflies with thick body. They rest with wings spread, much look like
dragonflies. They likes to perch on the vegetations about a meter over the running
water. When we went near them, they flied away while we were still two meters
away. They flied to a higher position and keep watching at us. They
returned to the same spot after we went away.
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- The Rockmaster Damselflies have black head, black striped bright blue colour
thorax, blue ringed black abdomen and blue light tail. Their anal appendages are
black in colour. Their wings are dark brown with clear wings base.
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- Our Australian Dragonfly Society
Secretary, Ric Nattrass told us that we can easily find the Rockmasters on
Northbrook Creek near Lake Wivenhoe. We went there on 2002 summer and found those beautiful
animal.
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- On Nov 2010 we visit the
Northbrook Creek again at the Red Cedar section. We found a lot of the Rockmasters
flying around.
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- We also found a female, which is relatively rarer than the male.
Females are brownish-yellow in colour with black patterns, which are quite
different from the males.
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- The male in above photos has the slightly smoked wings. They will become
much darker when matured, like those on the above of this page. We did found
some dark-winged matured males that day but could not take their photos. They
seems more alerted than the young damselflies.
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Northbrook Creek is a rapid flowing small river with rock and sand base. The
water is crystal clear..
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- Reference:
- 1. The Australian Dragonflies - CSIRO, Watson, Theisinger &
Abbey,1991, p170.
- 2. A
Field Guide to Dragonflies of South East Queensland - Ric Nattrass,
2006, p42.
- 3. The
Complete Field Guide to Dragonflies of Australia - CSIRO, Günther
Theischinger and John Hawking, 2006, p18.
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