About Paragomphus genei (Selys, 1841)
Paragomphus genei, commonly known as the common hooktail, is a striking small clubtail dragonfly. It reaches up to 50 millimeters in total length, with a maximum wingspan of 62 millimeters. It has a green face with greenish-brown eyes, a bright green thorax marked with dull brown stripes, and a thin abdomen patterned with brown, yellow, and black stripes. Its long yellow claspers are hooked in shape. This species is most similar to two other hooktails: the rock hooktail (Paragomphus cognatus) and the corkscrew hooktail (Paragomphus elpidius). It can be distinguished from the rock hooktail by its vibrant green thorax and entirely yellow, non-splayed claspers. It differs from the corkscrew hooktail by its smaller size, less intensely green body, less pronounced abdominal foliations, and less sharply hooked upper claspers. This species is distributed across Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Israel, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and possibly also occurs in Burundi. It also lives in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. Its natural habitats include subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, dry savanna, moist savanna, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, Mediterranean-region rivers and intermittent rivers, freshwater lakes, and freshwater marshes.
