The brilliant emerald, ''Somatochlora metallica'', is a middle-sized

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

. It is the largest and greenest of the ''

Somatochlora ''Somatochlora'', or the striped emeralds, is a genus of dragonflies in the family Corduliidae with 42 described species found across the Northern Hemisphere. Taxonomy The name ''Somatochlora'' is derived from the Greek ''soma'' (body) and ''khl ...

'' species; long. ''S. metallica'' is found across most of northern

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

where it is the commonest of its

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

. In

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, it is locally common in south east England and has a very restricted population in Scotland. The East Asian ''Somatochlora vera'',

scientifically described A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

in 1914 by Aleksandr Bartenev based on a specimen from

Ussuri The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the Si ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

(and later also reported in northern China), is typically treated as part of ''S. metallica'', but has also been considered a synonym of the East Asian '' S. exuberata''.

References

Corduliidae Dragonflies of Europe Insects described in 1825 {{Corduliidae-stub