Rapids Clubtail Dragonfly: Gray-White Thorax, Yellow-Marked Abdomen

Summary: North American rapids clubtail dragonfly habitats get blue-green eyes, gray-white-striped thoraxes, yellow-marked abdomens and roller-coasterlike flight.

female rapids clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus quadricolor); Riverbend Natural Area, Delhi Charter Township, Ingham County, south central Michigan; June 11, 2017: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North American rapids clubtail dragonfly habitats await mud-, rock-, wetland-loving arborists, gardeners, naturalists and stewards in distribution ranges from Maine through North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, Ontario, New Hampshire and everywhere in-between.

Rapids clubtails bear their common name for perch-friendly habitats and clubbed abdomens and the scientific name Gomphus quadricolor ([crossbow arrow] bolt four-colored [black, green, lilac, yellow]). Common names cinch scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 25th Bulletin of American Odonatology considers Huron Mountains odonates in Marquette County, Michigan. Descriptions in 1863 by Benjamin Dann Walsh (Sept. 21, 1808-Nov. 18, 1869), Cambridge classmate of Charles Robert Darwin (Feb. 12, 1809-April 19, 1882), drive scientific designations.

Rapids clubtail life cycles expect cobble-, gravel-, mud- or rock-bottomed, large, moderate- to swift-flowing rivers and streams with pools, rapids and riffles and mud-bottomed sluggish rivers.

May through August function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though June furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities throughout North America's coastal and inland rapids clubtail niches.

Rapids clubtails go out from night-time roosts after mates, for perches and on forages over bare ground; grassy blades; in-water and waterside rocks; and low-lying leaves. They hold horizontally onto ground and near-ground perches and, like broadwings, dancers, nonglider and nonsaddlebag skimmers and spreadwings, hunt as sallier perchers of edible, opportunistic invertebrates. They initiate roller-coaster, up-and-down serial uuuu flights when in peril and include within their daily itineraries immobility on perches, investigations of mates and ingestion of prey.

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

Immature rapids clubtails keep to diminutive sizes and dull colors even though adults know blue to turquoise eyes and black-, brown-, gray-, green-, white-, yellow-marked bodies.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles lead from eggs left unguarded to hatch into little adult-like, multimolting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted, shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Recently emerged rapids clubtails maintain permanent colors and manage physical and sexual maturation before mating 200 to 300 yards (182.88 to 274.32 meters) from breeding habitats. 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 unicorn lancet dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 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 rapids clubtails.

Blacks, blues, browns, grays, greens, whites and yellows, egg-thickened abdomens with egg-filled ovipositors and unclubbed tips and two, not three, claspers qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal blue to turquoise compound eyes; gray-white-marked black-brown thoraxes; black legs; dot-tipped clear wings; black-tipped, clubbed, yellow-sided, yellow-spotted black abdomens; and three black claspers. Adults show off 1.65- to 1.77-inch (42- to 45-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.26- to 1.34-inch (32- to 34-millimeter) abdomens and 0.98- to 1.06-inch (25- to 27-millimeter) hind-wings.

Gray-white-striped thoraxes; yellow-sided, yellow-spotted abdomens; and roller-coaster, up-and-down serial uuuu flights tell blue-turquoise-eyed, clear-winged, dark-legged clubtails from other odonates in North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats.

male rapids clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus quadricolor); Sharon Mills County Park, Sharon Township, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan; June 11, 2017: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

female rapids clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus quadricolor); Riverbend Natural Area, Delhi Charter Township, Ingham County, south central Michigan; June 11, 2017: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiskadee_3/35144722391/

male rapids clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus quadricolor); Sharon Mills County Park, Sharon Township, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan; June 11, 2017: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiskadee_3/34431100994/

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