The life cycle of Lestes viridis (Odonata: Lestidae) in two seasonal streams of the Sierra Morena Mountains (southern Spain)

The life cycle of the zygopteran odonate Lestes viridis in two seasonal streams in the Sierra Morena Mountains is inferred from size-frequency analyses of handnet samples of larvae and records of presence and reproductive activity of adults during three consecutive years. The egg stage (duration 5-6 months) overwinters, larval development is brief (6-8 weeks) and adults undergo a protracted, prereproductive, summer diapause (up to 3 months) before mating and ovipositing in late September, about one week after the first appreciable fall of rain, but before surface water reappears in the streams after having been absent for about four months during the hot, dry summer. Comparison between this life cycle and those of more northerly populations reveals a latitude-correlated dine in phenology resembling that found in some other northern hemisphere odonates that, like L. viridis, maintain an obligatorily univoltine life cycle at different latitudes.