Tiger Spiketail Dragonfly Habitats: Belly Band, Dual Shoulder Stripe

Summary: North American tiger spiketail dragonfly habitats in the eastern United States have belly bands, dual-striped shoulders and green eyes briefly touching.

tiger spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaaster erronea): Eric Haas @Eric_Haas, via Twitter Jan. 27, 2016

North American tiger spiketail dragonfly habitats activate cultivation along seeps and naturalism with distribution ranges from Rhode Island through Georgia and through New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi and everywhere in-between.

Tiger spiketails bear their common name for black-and-yellow striping and for spiked ovipositors and the scientific name Cordulegaster erronea (club-shaped belly [that is] erroneous [or] wandering). The scientific name commemorates scientific research collaborations by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893) for Edmond de Sélys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900). It defers to descriptions in 1878 for the Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Belgique (Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Belgium) during Baron Longchamps' Belgian senatorship.

Tiger spiketail life cycles expect fishless, gravelly, rocky, sandy, shaded, siltless, swampy seeps, streams and trickles with emergent grasses, fields, forests, interrupted ferns and skunk cabbages.

June through September function as optimal, southernmost flight seasons even though June through August furnish wildlife mapping opportunities in all coastal and inland tiger spiketail niches.

Male tiger spiketail dragonflies go from night-time resting roosts to challenge each other and intruders, hover, patrol and reverse direction between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. They harry competitors and prey and hold obliquely or perpendicularly onto perch-friendly stems and twigs up to 15 feet (4.57 meters) above ground and water surfaces. Impeding competition and invasions, imprisoning prey within lower lips and three-segmented legs and identifying mates inspire aerially intensive investigations of seeps, streams, trickles and waterside woodlands.

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

Immature spiketail dragonflies keep to dull, faded, light, pale colors and to low-range sizes even though adult males and mature females know bright-eyed, bright-striped large bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis links round eggs laid by two sewing machine-like, up-and-down motions per second, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Recently emerged tenerals manage permanent colors and sexual maturation before mating high up in nearby or waterside trees and manipulating 350-plus eggs into each ovipositing site. Spiketail members in the Coenagrionidae (club-bellied) dragonfly family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms.

North American tiger spiketail dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 6.66 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 tiger spiketails.

Black-patterned yellow faces, clear wings, dark legs, double yellow front and side-striped black thoraxes, green eyes and thick yellow-banded black abdomens qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males retain the same black, green and yellow colors and patterns even though they reveal longer, slimmer looks without female-like, protruding ovipositors or thickened abdomens. Adults show off 2.56- to 2.99-inch (65- to 76-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.97- to 2.52-inch (50- to 64-millimeter) abdomens and 1.65- to 2.01-inch (42- to 51-millimeter) hindwings.

Double yellow-striped shoulders and sides, green eyes together at one point, yellow-banded abdomens tell tiger spiketails from other odonates in North American tiger spiketail dragonfly habitats.

male tiger spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster erronea), with markings painted with nail polish: Invertebrate Studies Institute @InvertebrateStudiesInstitute, via Facebook June 18, 2013

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

tiger spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaaster erronea): Eric Haas @Eric_Haas, via Twitter Jan. 27, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/Eric_Haas/status/692532598816555009

male tiger spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster erronea), with markings painted with nail polish: Invertebrate Studies Institute @InvertebrateStudiesInstitute, via Facebook June 18, 2013, @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=154547474730730&l=14dcf4223c

For further information:

Abbott, John C. Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and the South-Central United States: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Princeton NJ; Oxford UK: Princeton University Press, 2005.

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.

Bright, Ethan. "Cordulegaster (Thecophora) erronea Hagen, in Selys, 1878: 688 -- Tiger Spiketail." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Cordulegastridae Newman, 1853 (Spiketails) > Cordulegaster Leach, 1838 (Spiketails).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Cordulegaster erronea." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Cordulegastridae > Cordulegaster.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=508

Eric Haas ‏@Eric_Haas. "Tiger Spiketail (Cordulegaster erronea)." Twitter. Jan. 27, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/Eric_Haas/status/692532598816555009

Invertebrate Studies Institute @InvertebrateStudiesInstitute. "Research on the amazing Tiger spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster erronea) by David Moskowitz has investigated the stream fidelity and patrolling habits of males at the breeding streams through a marking program." Facebook. June 18, 2013.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=154547474730730&l=14dcf4223c

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

Sélys-Longchamps, M. (Michel Edmond) de. "Quatrièmes Additions au Synopsis des Gomphines (suite et fin): Lindenia  -- Chlorogomphus -- Cordulegaster et Petalura: 108quart. Cordulegaster erroneus, Hagen, in litteris." Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, quarante-septième année, tome XLVI (Série 2): 688-689. Bruxelles (Brussels), Belgium: F. Hayez, 1878.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5308067
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044093256782?urlappend=%3Bseq=708

"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/