Common blue damselfly, Enallagma cyathigerum
Common blue damselfly, Enallagma cyathigerum © Cezar Popescu, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license
The common blue damselfly is a small species, up to 3.5cm long. Easily mistaken for the azure damselfly, it has more black than blue on its back, and a single thin black stripe on the side of its thorax (in addition to the thick black stripes on the top).
If you look at the tail-like part of the body, you will see that the marking on the 2nd abdominal segment is a black spot with a line connecting it to the next segment, rather than a U-shape.
Females can be blue, brown or more of a pale green colour.
This damselfly is widespread and fairly common throughout Britain. It favours open water habitats like large ponds, lakes and rivers although adults are also found away from water in shady spots.
