Spine-Crowned Clubtail Dragonfly: Black-and-Yellow Body, Clear Wings

Summary: North American spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly habitats get black legs, black-and-yellow bodies, clear wings and, on female crowns, thin spines.

spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus abbreviatus): Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North American spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly habitats anticipate mucky, muddy, rocky and sandy Atlantic coastal distribution ranges from Maine through North Carolina and inland into New Hampshire and Vermont and selectively in Ohio.

Spine-crowned clubtails bear their common name for female spiny-backed simple eyes and male clubbed abdomens and the scientific name Gomphus abbreviatus ([crossbow arrow-like] bolt [and] short). Scientific classifications carry the bibliographic citation Hagen in Selys to clarify Hermann August Hagen's (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893) contributions to categorizing spine-crowned clubtails in 1878. The Hagen descriptions develop discoveries for common clubtail genus members in an article by Michel Edmond de Selys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900) in 1878.

Spine-crowned clubtail life cycles expect clean, medium- to large-sized, shallow rivers and streams with moderate currents, mucky deposits, muddy, rocky or sandy bottoms and rocky riffles.

April through July function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though May through June furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout coastal and inland spine-crowned clubtail niches.

Spine-crowned clubtails go out from night-time roosts as early as midmorning and most frequently late in the afternoon to gain mates, get perches and grab prey. They hold horizontally onto leafy perches amid hilltop trees and shoreline weeds and onto river and stream rocks and hover over upstream heads of rocky riffles. Male spine-crowned clubtail itineraries involve incessant or interrupted investigative patrols of 1-foot (0.31-meter) intervals of open and rock water about 1 foot (0.31 meter) above waterlines.

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

Immature spine-crowned clubtails keep diminutive sizes and river and stream muck-, mud-, rock-, sand-kind coloration whereas blue-green-, brown-, gray-, gray-green, violet-eyed adults know bright black-and-yellow bodies.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles lead spine-crowned clubtails from egg balls loaded onto abdominal tips and loosened by unaccompanied females to multimolting immature and molted teneral stages. Little adult-like, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs metamorphose into shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weak-flying tenerals that mature physically and sexually, mate and manipulate eggs into watery 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 green-faced clubtail dragonfly habitats offer northward to southward, season-coldest temperatures from minus 45 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 20.55 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 spine-crowned clubtails.

One black, thin spine each for each side of the head's simple eyes, ovipositors and two claspers qualify as adult brown-, gray- or violet-eyed female hallmarks. Adult black-legged, yellow-faced males reveal black-, narrow-, side-striped, gray-yellow thoraxes, yellow-, side-spotted black abdomens with yellow triangle-marked tops and black-and-yellow clubbed tips and three black claspers. Adults show off 1.34- to 1.38-inch (34- to 35-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.02- to 1.18-inch (26- to 30-millimeter) abdomens and 0.87- to 0.98-inch (22- to 25-millimeter) hindwings.

Black-and-yellow-striped thoraxes, dark-tipped clear wings, yellow-spotted, yellow triangle-patterned abdomens and black-and-yellow clubbed tips tell spine-crowned clubtails from overlapping odonates in North American spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly habitats.

spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus abbreviatus): 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:

spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus abbreviatus); Phelps Wildlife Management Area, Sumerduck, Fauquier County, Northern Virginia; April 20, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/33805566410/

spine-crowned clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus abbreviatus); Phelps Wildlife Management Area, Sumerduck, Fauquier County, Northern Virginia; April 20, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/34052621101/

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.

"Gomphus abbreviatus." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Gomphidae > Gomphus.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=1226

Hine, J. S. 1901. A New Species of Gomphus and Its Near Relatives. Ohio Naturalist 1: 60-61. p. 60.

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: 47quint. Gomphus abbreviatus, Hagen." Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, quarante-septième année, tome XLVI (Série 2): 464-465. Bruxelles (Brussels), Belgium: F. Hayez, 1878.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5307853
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044093256782?urlappend=%3Bseq=480

"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/