Slow-flowing, sunny, summer- and winter-warm, permanently water-bearing ditches and streams in grassland areas are colonised by the European azure damselfly (FFH Appendix II; RL D: 1; RL NRW: 1). As with the helmeted damselfly, ice-free waters all year round, distinct aquatic vegetation, a low flow velocity and a sufficient oxygen content are decisive for the occurrence of the species. Population biology and ecology aspects as well as questions about the species' mobility and dispersal behaviour have hardly been investigated to date. As a southeastern European species, the European Damselfly reaches its northern distribution limit in northern Germany. In North Rhine-Westphalia, only small populations are known in the Minden-Lübbecke district.

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