Dragonfly (Odonata) fauna of the Zelengora Mountain and Sutjeska National Park

Abstract

High mountain habitats of Bosnia and Herzegovina are often isolated and difficult to access. That is why to this day, the dragonfly fauna of the mountain region in BiH remained almost entirely unexplored. The aim of this study was to present the first overview of the dragonfly fauna of Zelengora Mt. and the National Park Sutjeska, the area which includes some of the most important habitats of these insects in the country. This paper is a result of the authors’ research combined with the analysis of existing data. The dragonfly (Odonata) fauna of Zelengora Mt. and NP Sutjeska consists of a total of 35 species, representing 55% of the fauna of this insect order in BiH. Together with data obtained with the studies in 2015 and 2016, this paper also includes unpublished data collected by the authors between 2009 and 2014, literature data and the data from the collections of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A total of 457 records from 53 sites were collected and over 76% of these represent new data. According to the number of sites inhabited by a single species, the most numerous are: Cordulegaster bidentata Selys, 1843 (recorded at 26 sites), Cordulia aenea (Linnaeus, 1758) (23 sites), Aeshna grandis (Linnaeus, 1758) (15 sites), Libellula quadrimaculata Linnaeus, 1758 (15 sites) and Enallagma cyathigerum (Charpentier, 1840) (14 sites). The following localities were inhabited by the highest number of species: Orlovačko Lake (22 species), Gornje Bare Lake (20 species) and Donje Bare Lake (19 species), where also the highest number of threatened and endangered species was recorded. The most important recorded species were: Coenagrion scitulum (Rambur, 1842), Coenagrion hastulatum (Charpentier, 1825), A. grandis, Aeshna juncea (Linnaeus, 1758), Somatochlora metallica (Vander Linden, 1825), Cordulegaster heros Theischinger, 1979, C. bidentata and Sympetrum flaveolum (Linnaeus, 1758). For relict species C. hastulatum and S. metallica, mountain lakes of Zelengora Mt. are the only known habitat in Bosnia and Herzegovina so far. Additionally, these lakes were determined as the most important habitats in the country for A. grandis and A. juncea. Among the registered species, 30 species are included in the Red list of protected species in Republic of Srpska. Additionally, we have recorded all three dragonfly species listed on the Red list of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, C. heros is listed in Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive of the European Union and as vulnerable (VU) species on the Mediterranean Red list.