Visual Key: Non-Demoiselle

So, you have a damselfly that isn’t a Demoiselle.

Now we can home in further knowing how extensive the pterostigmas are, wide and quite regular spanning 2 or more cells or narrower spanning 1-1½ cells.

Most of our damselflies sit with their 4 wings folded together, making seeing the underlying cells very tricky so concentrate on the overall shape:

wide rectangle – Emerald (Lestes)

narrower lozenge – non-Emerald (Lestes)

If the pterostisgmas really aren’t clear, the wider pterostigmas are for our 4 Emerald Damselflies and it is mostly safe to risk colour at this point, all the emeralds showing dorsal sides that are a variation on metallic green, including bronze-green variations.

Dorsally metallic green/bronze-green abdomen & thorax

NOT metallic green/bronze-green

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