Swamp Darner Dragonfly Habitats: Green Marks, Hairy Claspers, Spines

Summary: North American swamp darner dragonfly habitats get big, green-ringed, green-spotted, green-striped brown bodies with abdominal spines and hairy claspers.

swamp darner dragonfly (Epiaeschna heros); Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, near Laurel, southern Maryland; June 12, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North American swamp darner dragonfly habitats accommodate arborists, gardeners, naturalists and tree stewards from Nova Scotia through Florida, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and distribution ranges everywhere in-between.

Swamp darners bear their common name for soggy habitats and knitting needle-shaped abdomens and the scientific name Epiaeschna heros (upon [comparison with] Aeschna [genus] heroic [proportions]). Common names cater to scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose eighth Bulletin of American Odonatology considers damselflies and dragonflies in Ohio. Descriptions in 1798 by Johann Christian Fabricius (Jan. 7, 1745-March 3, 1809), Natural History and Economics Professor at the University of Kiel, Germany, direct scientific designations.

Swamp darner life cycles expect shaded oxbows, shady, slow-flowing rivers and streams and swamps for woodland breeding and seasonal pools and shallow ponds for larval stages.

February through November function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though May or July furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities for coastal and inland swamp darner niches.

Swamp darners go in feeding swarms after winged ants and termites above clearings, down trails, over bogs and culverts, through buildings at dusk and during daylight. They hang vertically down from higher and lower thin branches; hasten up and down paths, roads and trails; head toward lighted buildings; hold no home territories. Clawed, dark, three-segmented legs and projectable, retractable lower legs imprison aquatic and terrestrial, low-flying and low-lying, solitary and swarmed prey in waterside, watery and woodland territories.

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

Immature swamp darners keep to dull, faded, colors and lower sizes even though adults know blue eyes and green rings and stripes on brown-black, large bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis links rod-shaped eggs laid in dead wood up to 6 feet (1.83 meters) above waterlines, mud and standing trunks to larvae, naiads or nymphs. Multi-molting, nonflying larval stages molt into shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals that mature and mate away from water to manipulate eggs into waterside and watery ovipositing sites. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish swamp darner members of the Aeshnidae dragonfly family.

North American swamp darner dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 3.88 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 swamp darners.

Big eyes with more brown than blue, egg-thickened abdomens and flattened, long claspers qualify as adult hallmarks for big-, brown-bodied, big-, brown-headed, brown-legged, green-ringed, green-striped females. Big, brown-bodied, big-, brown-headed males reveal big blue eyes; amber-tinged wings with green-spotted bases; green-, thin-striped shoulders; double-, green-striped sides; green-ringed abdomens; dark, hairy, long claspers. Adults show off 2.44- to 2.87-inch (62- to 73-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.85- to 2.16-inch (47- to 55-millimeter) abdomens and 1.77- to 1.97-inch (45- to 50-millimeter) hindwings.

Big sizes; green rings, spots and stripes; hairy claspers; the male's 10th-segmented spines tell swamp darners from other odonates in North American swamp darner dragonfly habitats.

swamp darner dragonfly (Epiaeschna heros); Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, Laurel, northwestern Anne Arundel County, near Laurel (northwestern Prince George's County), southern Maryland; June 10, 2012: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

swamp darner dragonfly (Epiaeschna heros); Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, near Laurel, southern Maryland; June 12, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/27584919641/

swamp darner dragonfly (Epiaeschna heros); Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, Laurel, northwestern Anne Arundel County, near Laurel (northwestern Prince George's County), southern Maryland; June 10, 2012: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/7359885244/

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. "Epiaeschna heros (Fabricius, 1798: 285 as Aeschna) -- Swamp Darner." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Aeshnidae Rambur, 1842: 181 (Darners) > Epiaeschna Hagen, 1877 (Swamp Darner).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Epiaeschna heros." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Aeshnidae > Epiaeschna.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=161

Fabricii, Joh. Christ. (Fabricius, Johan Christian). "Aeschna heros." Supplementum Entomologiae Systematicae: 285-286. Hafniae [Copenhagen, Denmark]: Proft et Storch, MDCCXCVIII (1798).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42138781

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

"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/