A free field guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of Borneo — 376 species, each with photographs, scientific name, and the reserves where it has been recorded. Nothing to buy, nothing to sign up for.
What Borneo's dragonfly list looks like
This covers both dragonflies and their slighter relatives, the damselflies — together the order Odonata. The big, fast hawkers and darners (Aeshnidae) and the skimmers (Libellulidae) are the ones most people notice first, patrolling open water and forest pools. Look closer at any forest stream, though, and the real diversity is in the delicate jewels (Chlorocyphidae) and torrent damsels (Euphaeidae) that perch on wet rocks in the spray, many of them Bornean endemics found nowhere outside a single river system.
A useful sign of a healthy river
Stream-breeding damselflies are unusually sensitive to water quality — their larvae need clean, well-oxygenated, shaded water to develop, and they disappear fast from logged or silted catchments. A forest stream thick with jewels and torrent damsels is, in effect, telling you the water above it is still in good condition, which makes this one of the more useful groups to a guide reading a river rather than just photographing it.
Where and when to find them
Forest streams and rivers, in sunny conditions from mid-morning onward — most Odonata need warmth to fly and are far less active on overcast days. Danum Valley's streams and the rivers around Maliau Basin are reliable for a wide cross-section, including several of the stream specialists.
Using this instead of a book
Bornean Odonata identification has historically depended on specialist papers scattered across journals rather than one accessible guide. This brings the list together in one searchable place with photographs of live insects. There is a fuller comparison of this guide against printed ones on the field guide page.
All 376 species
Each card has two colour-coded toggles:
turns lime green — adds it to your trip planner
marks it as seen in my sightings
