About Brachythemis leucosticta (Burmeister, 1839)
Brachythemis leucosticta (Burmeister, 1839) is a small dragonfly species. It reaches a maximum length of 33 mm (1.3 in), and a maximum wingspan of 57 mm (2.2 in). Males have a completely black abdomen and thorax, a black face and black eyes, bicolored pterostigmata that include yellow, and a very dark brown or blackish band near the tip of each wing. Females have yellow and black patterning on both the thorax and abdomen; their coloration becomes less bright as they age, and they have brown banded eyes. This species is distributed across East and Central Africa. Confirmed populations are recorded in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It may also occur in the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Sudan. In South Africa, it occurs in the northern and eastern parts of the country, and is largely absent from the Cape region. There are a small number of scattered records from the Eastern Cape, and a single recorded occurrence in the Western Cape. Brachythemis leucosticta inhabits areas around small pools in open landscapes or savannah. These pools may or may not support aquatic or emergent vegetation. Females and young males can often be found some distance from water.
