Cherokee Clubtail Dragonfly: Greenish Eyes, Black-Yellow Clubbed Body

Summary: North American cherokee clubtail dragonfly habitats get greenish eyes, dark-lined faces, clear wings, black-and-yellow clubbed bodies and short legs.

Belgian odonatologist Edmond de Selys Longchamp (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900) described the Cherokee Clubtail Dragonfly (Gomphus consanguis) in 1879; 1881 portrait by 19th century Belgian painter Jean-Mathieu Nisen (1819-1885): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

North American cherokee clubtail dragonfly habitats appeal to silt-, water- and woodland garden-loving cultivators and wooded wetland-loving naturalists in forested and spring-fed distribution ranges in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Cherokee clubtails bear their common name for Cherokee homeland bio-geographies and clubbed abdomens and the scientific name Gomphus consanguis ([crossbow arrow-like] bolt sharing blood [with gomphids]). Common names cement scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 32nd Bulletin of American Odonatology covers North America's cruiser, emerald and skimmer distributions. Scientific designations defer to descriptions in 1879 by Michel Edmond de Selys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), practitioner of wing venation for odonate order identifications.

Cherokee clubtail life cycles expect small, spring-fed forest streams with moderate currents, semi-shaded edges, silt bottoms and streamside vegetation in lesser known, out-of-the-way Appalachian Mountain habitats.

May through July function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though May and June furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in all cherokee clubtail North American niches.

Cherokee clubtails go out from nighttime roosts for daytime forages, patrols and perches on low-lying leaves along woody edges, in weedy watersides and over open water. They head out on short, slow patrols over open water and hover 1 yard (.091 meter) above waterlines between holding onto leafy perches and hunting prey. Their itineraries include only intermittent investigative flights since their scarcely widened hindwings, short legs, slender abdomens and small thoraxes indicate more immobile instances than mobile interludes.

Ants, assassin flies, biting midges, ducks, falcons, fish, flycatchers, frogs, grebes, lizards, spiders, turtles and water beetles and mites jeopardize North American cherokee clubtail dragonfly habitats.

Immature cherokee clubtails keep to bright yellows throughout multiple molts even though adult blue-green-eyed males and green-eyed females know black, gray-green, green, yellow and yellow-green bodies.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles lead from round eggs laid after females lounge around semi-shaded silty shorelines to nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and to molted tenerals. Egg-hatched immature stages metamorphose into shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weakflying tenerals that master permanent colors and physical and sexual maturation before mating and manipulating eggs into ovipositing sites. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish common clubtail members of the Gomphidae dragonfly family.

North American cherokee clubtail dragonfly habitats offer north- to southward, season-coldest temperatures from minus 10 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.33 to minus 12.22 degrees Celsius).

Beech, bellflower, birch, bladderwort, cattail, daisy, grass, greenbrier, heath, laurel, madder, maple, nettle, olive, pepperbush, pine, pondweed, rush, sedge, water-lily and willow families promote cherokee clubtails.

Black-striped gray-green to green-yellow thoraxes, dusky-tipped wings and thick, yellow-spotted, streaked, striped black abdomens with black-and-yellow-spotted, scarcely clubbed tips and ovipositors qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal blue-green eyes, black-lined faces, black-striped gray-green thoraxes, black, short legs, gray-green-yellow-patched, spotted, streaked, striped black abdomens with black-and-yellow-spotted, clubbed tips and three claspers. Adults show off 1.89- to 1.97-inch (48- to 50-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.38- to 1.49-inch (35- to 38-millimeter) abdomens and 1.26- to 1.46-inch (32- to 37-millimeter) hindwings.

Single-lined faces, narrow-lined thoraxes and patched, spotted, streaked, striped slender, subtly clubbed abdomens tell cherokee clubtails from other odonates in North American splendid clubtail dragonfly habitats.

The Virginia Department of Conservation and Preservation's (DCR) Natural Heritage Program identifies Russell County's Cleveland Barrens Natural Area Preserve in southwestern Virginia as one of the Appalachian habitats of the "rare" and "poorly known" odonate: Virginia Department of Conservation and Preservation @VirginiaDCR, via Facebook Jan. 10, 2018

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Belgian odonatologist Edmond de Selys Longchamp (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900) described the Cherokee Clubtail Dragonfly (Gomphus consanguis) in 1879; 1881 portrait by 19th century Belgian painter Jean-Mathieu Nisen (1819-1885): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michel_Edmond_de_Selys_Longchamps.jpg br />

The Virginia Department of Conservation and Preservation's (DCR) Natural Heritage Program identifies Russell County's Cleveland Barrens Natural Area Preserve in southwestern Virginia as one of the Appalachian habitats of the "rare" and "poorly known" odonate: Virginia Department of Conservation and Preservation @VirginiaDCR, via Facebook Jan. 10, 2018, @ https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaDCR/posts/595855914095765?__tn__=-R

For further information:

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Beaton, Giff. Dragonflies & Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast. Athens GA; London UK: University of Georgia Press, 2007.

Berger, Cynthia. Dragonflies. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books: Wild Guide, 2004.

Paulson, Dennis. Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides, 2011.

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Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12371646
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106291529?urlappend=%3Bseq=312

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"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/

Virginia Department of Conservation and Preservation. "Cleveland Barrens Natural Area Preserve1288 acres -- Russell County, Virginia."
Available @ https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/document/pgcbarrens.pdfbr />

Westfall, Minter J., Jr, and Richard P. Trogdon. "The True Gomphus consanguis Selys (Odonata: Gomphidae)." The Florida Entomologist, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 1962): 29-41.
Available via JSTOR @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/3492900