Complete Field Guide to Dragonflies of Australia [OP]

Dragonflies and damselflies are conspicuous insects – many are large and brightly coloured. Here for the first time is a comprehensive guide to the Australian dragonfly fauna.

The book includes identification keys not only for adults but also for their larvae, commonly known as "mud eyes" and often used as bait for freshwater fish. With stunning full-colour images and distribution maps, the book covers all 30 families, 110 genera and 324 species found in Australia.

Dragonflies are valuable indicators of environmental well-being. A detailed knowledge of the dragonfly fauna and its changes is therefore an important basis for decisions about environmental protection and management. Their extraordinary diversity will interest entomologists and amateur naturalists alike.

John Hawking is an invertebrate ecologist at Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre in New South Wales. He holds numerous workshops on identification of freshwater invertebrates.

Günther Theischinger has had a lifelong interest in aquatic insects. He has collected specimens in Australia, Greece, Spain and Australia and published more than 200 scientific papers. In the last few years he has described more than 60 new species and several new genera of Australian dragonflies. He has been a visiting scientist at the Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra, and is a Research Associate of the Australian Museum and a Visiting Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution.