Steve Brooks has had an interest in dragonflies since he was young. He was impressed by the voracity of dragonfly larvae which ate everything else in the jam jar he had filled after pond dipping trips with his Dad, and by the spectacle of the adult dragonflies later emerging during the night from those same jars lined up on his bedroom windowsill. Steve has been fortunate to pursue this interest in his professional career as a specialist in freshwater insects and environmental change at the Natural History Museum in London. He has published over 190 scientific papers and book chapters, many of them on dragonflies, and five books, including the New Naturalist volume 'Dragonflies' with Philip Corbet. Steve is a founder member of the British Dragonfly Society (BDS), was a former editor of the Journal of the British Dragonfly Society, and currently serves on the BDS Conservation Committee. He is Associate Editor of Odonatologica and Journal of Paleolimnology.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Regional guides
Identification
Further reading
Addresses
Checklist of Odonata of Great Britain and Ireland
Index