Status: 12/15/2022 6:02 p.m
She likes it colder, lives in the mountains and needs water for her offspring: the alpine emerald dragonfly. Global warming is troubling her and could even lead to the extinction of the species. That’s why she gets special attention in 2023.
The endangered Alpine Emerald Dragonfly is the “Dragonfly of the Year 2023”. The species is one of the “losers of climate change,” said the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND). The dragonfly species is therefore not easy to identify and is not often observed due to its rarity and the inaccessibility of its habitat. It has a distribution area that extends from Norway through Siberia to northern Japan.
In Germany, it only occurs at locations above 750 meters above sea level in the Harz, Thuringian Forest, Ore Mountains, Fichtelgebirge, Bavarian Forest and Black Forest as well as in the Bavarian Alps. The dragonfly is considered “cold-loving”.
Habitats endangered by climate change
The alpine emerald dragonflies (Somatochlora alpestris) live in the low mountain ranges almost exclusively in intermediate and raised bogs, in the higher altitudes of the Alps also in larger bodies of water such as ponds and small lakes. The animals are having a hard time with global warming because, among other things, the habitats of the larvae are drying out.
Because it’s already so rare, conservationists say, there’s a very good chance the species could go extinct. The habitats must therefore be intensively protected. However, the ongoing climate change is making it difficult, for example, for the well-functioning measures to improve and revitalize the moors.
The award is given by BUND and the Society of German-speaking Odonatologists (dragonfly researchers). In 2022, the focus was on the Lesser Pitch Damsel.