In order to home in on the identification of a species that you’ve seen in Sussex, the following table may help. It groups damselflies and dragonflies primarily on the characteristics of the adult male insects which will be those most often encountered. Identification of some of the females can be a bit more tricky and might involve reference to the ‘Similar species’ sections in the species accounts and to the photos on this and the British Dragonfly Society websites. Those species shown as ‘restricted’ below occur in a very limited number of locations (see maps in species accounts) while those shown as ‘rare’ or ‘very rare’ should not be considered until all other possibilities have been exhausted!