Twin-Spotted Spiketail Dragonfly Habitats: Paired Spots and Stripes

Summary: North American twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly habitats in Canada and the United States get eyes briefly touching and paired yellow spots and stripes.

twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster maculata); Gildersleeve Mountain, Greater Cleveland Area, Lake County, northeastern Ohio; June 2007: Hans Petruschke (Haans42 at en.wikipedia), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

North American twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly habitats acquaint cultivators with muck, mud and sand, fishers with trout and naturalists with Atlantic and Gulf distribution ranges east into Alberta, Mississippi River shorelands and Texas.

Twin-spotted spiketails bear their common name from spotted abdomens and spiked ovipositors (egg-layers) and the scientific name Cordulegaster maculata (club-shaped belly [with paired yellow] spotted [abdomens]). Common names consolidate the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas to correct the confusion before 1988 concerning non-scientific odonate nomenclature. Descriptions in 1854 by Michel Edmond de Sélys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), President-elect of the Belgian Senate, 1880-1884, and world-renowned scientist, determine scientific designations.

Twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly life cycles expect clean, fast-flowing, rocky, spring-fed forest and woodland streams with eddying muddy pools, gravelly, mucky-, muddy-, sandy-bottomed seepages, mayflies and trout.

February through August function as optimal, southernmost flight seasons even though April or May furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities in all North American twin-spotted spiketail habitat niches.

Twin-spotted spiketails get to within one inch (2.54 centimeters) of water surfaces as they go alongside wide streams and side to side over mossy, shallow trickles. They head out faster, and hover less, than all other spiketails when they hunt from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at, far from, near breeding waters. Breeding and feeding impel hunting, patrolling itineraries even during cloudy, rainy interludes and inspire conspicuously immobile inclinations obliquely, parallel or perpendicular to low-lying stems and twigs.

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

Immature twin-spotted spiketail dragonflies keep dull, faded, light, pale colors and low size ranges even though adult females and males know big black and yellow forms.

Incomplete metamorphosis links eggs laid in running water over gravel, mud and sand, hairy larvae, naiads or nymphs in leaf-, log-laden sand or silt and tenerals. Emergent antennae mark immature, three-year multi-molting underground that metamorphose shiny-winged, soft-bodied tenerals into adults for 30-minute matings in treetops and accordion-like, up-and-down 100 egg-layings a minute. Spiketail members of the Cordulegastridae dragonfly family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mayflies, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms.

North American twin-spotted 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 twin-spotted spiketails.

Gray or green eyes; double-, yellow-spotted and triangle-patterned black abdomens; clear or smoky wings; and yellow double-, side-striped, single-, shoulder-striped black thoraxes qualify as northern hallmarks. Southerners reveal aqua-blue, gray or sky-blue eyes; double-, pale-spotted and triangle-patterned brown abdomens; clear wings; gray-haired legs; and double-, pale-, side-striped and single-, shoulder-striped brown thoraxes. Adults show off 2.51- to 2.99-inch (64- to 76-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.85- to 2.28-inch (47- to 58-millimeter) abdomens and 1.49- to 1.93-inch (38- to 49-millimeter) hindwings.

Dark versus pale faces, dullness versus brightness, gray versus blue-green eyes, small versus large spots tell females from males in North American twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly habitats.

male twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster maculta): U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-New England District, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster maculata); Gildersleeve Mountain, Greater Cleveland Area, Lake County, northeastern Ohio; June 2007: Hans Petruschke (Haans42 at en.wikipedia), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Twin_spotted_Spiketail.JPG

male twin-spotted spiketail dragonfly (Cordulegaster maculta): U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-New England District, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cordulegaster_maculata.jpg

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) maculata Selys, 1854: 105 -- Twin-spotted 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 maculata." 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=514

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

Sélys-Longchamps, M.Edm. (Michel Edmond) de. "Synopsis des Gomphines: 108. Cordulegaster maculatus, De Selys." Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, tome XXI (Série 1), IIme partie, no. 7: 105. Bruxelles (Brussels), Belgium: M. Hayez, 1854
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39438457
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112112254658?urlappend=%3Bseq=117

"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/