Austroaeschna parvistigma (Selys, 1883)
SWAMP DARNER
Family Telephlebiidae
Darners sometimes land in odd places. The first Darner from the family Telephlebiidae that I observed was perched on the gauge of an old generator at Deer Vale NSW. This one turned out to be Austroaeschna parvistigma, the Swamp Darner.
Like the Blue-spotted Hawker, Adversaeschna brevistyla, the male Swamp Darner has angular hind wing bases while the female has rounded hind wing bases.
According to Gunther Theischinger and John Hawking in their book “The Complete Field Guide to Australian Dragonflies” the adult Austroaeschna parvistigma is similar to Austroaeschna multipunctata, (Multi- spotted Darner) but one difference is that only the upper portion of the anterior face of the frons is dark in the former whereas it is completely dark in the latter. The Multi-spotted Darner however, is not found in NE NSW.
On February 25th 2012 a female Swamp Darner was flying around a paddock near our house at Deer Vale. It flew mostly within 1-2 metres of the ground and occasionally darted up much higher. Three times it flew very close to me and was definitely investigating me. It may have landed on the back of my grey track pants and if not was at least as far as I could see, less than a cm from me. After 10 minutes or so, it landed on the corrugated iron wall of the chook shed where I was able to photograph it.
I ventured up to Biscuit Creek on March 11th 2017, and was lucky to observe a female Swamp Darner laying eggs amongst the water weeds. After laying eggs this female hovered low over the water so I was able to capture her flying, photographically of course.
