New breeding site of Trithemis annulata (P. de Beauv.) in Corsica (Anisoptera: Libellulidae)

T. annulata is an African species that breeds in some places in southern mediterranean Europe (Crete and the Peloponnes in Greece, Sicily, Sardinia and the southern half of the Italian peninsula as well as the lowland parts of the Iberian peninsula; R.R. ASKEW, 1988, Dragonflies of Europe, Harley, England). In France it was not known until 1988, when B.A. ROCHE (1989, Martinia 5: 23-24) found three males at a reservoir near Aleria, Corsica. J.-L. DOMMANGET (1994, Atlas preliminaire des odonates de France. Mus. Natn. Hist. Nat., Paris) has two dots in this species’ distribution map in Corsica, one presumably being the Aleria site and the other, on the NW coast. It is therefore interesting to note that on 28 August 1996 we found an important number of T. annulata at the NE end of the reservoir of the village of Figari, 9 km N of Bonifacio (Departement Corse du Sud, France). Along a 60 m stretch of a gravel path there were ca 30 imagines of the species (20 d, 10 2). Among other odonate species, only 2 male Orthetrum cancellatum were seen. The reservoir is a reproduction site, because we found ca 70 exuviae along a section of the shore which measured 40 m long by 13 m wide. According to the key in ASKEW (1988, loc. cit.), all of 36 collected exuviae were identified as T. annulata. As the entire reservoir is about 3 km long, and this section of shore seemed to be typical of the rest of the shore, the total number of emerged imagines at the lake may well go into tens of thousands. The reservoir seems to be quite newly built. It is rather oligotrophic and totally surrounded with maquis forest on a granitic basement. The open shore was 10-20 m wide, measured from the waterfront to the beginning of the closed terrestrial vegetation, and sparsely covered with mostly dead 10-80 cm high bushes and some Juncus.