Ashy Clubtail Dragonfly: Bulky Gray Thorax, Spearpoint-Marked Abdomen

Summary: North American ashy clubtail dragonfly habitats get roller-coaster-like flyers with brown-yellow stripes, gray sides and yellow spearpoint-like marks.

ashy clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus lividus); Straight Fork, Highlands County, Virginia: Monday, June 12, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American ashy clubtail dragonfly habitats address mud-, sand-, water-tolerant cultivation and naturalism with distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through Florida, Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ontario, New Hampshire and everywhere in-between.

Ashy clubtails bear their common name for gray-brown colors and for clubbed male abdomens and the scientific name Gomphus lividus ([crossbow arrow] bolt [that is] lead-colored). Common names corroborate scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 26th Bulletin of American Odonatology covers revisions of the odonate order in Cuba. Descriptions in 1854 by Michel Edmond de Selys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), whose surname diminutizes Marcellus and divulges landholdings in Belgium, drive scientific designations.

Ashy clubtail life cycles expect bays and edges of trout-filled, wave-beaten lakes, mud- or sand-bottomed, slow- to moderate-flowing, trout-filled woodland rivers and streams and sheltered inlets.

March through August function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though May or June furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities throughout coastal and woodland ashy clubtail niches.

Ashy clubtails go out for mates, perches and prey at ground or near-ground levels and on low-lying shrub and tree leaves and shoreline rocks and sand. They hold horizontally onto ground-level, leafy, rocky, sandy perches between hunts, like broadwings, dancers, non-glider, nonsaddlebag skimmers and spreadwings, as sallier perchers of fly-by, opportunistic prey. Their itineraries include investigating open woodlands and wooded clearings and edges and involve ingesting wet woodland-flying invertebrates and initiating roller-coaster, up-and-down serial uuuu flights when imperiled.

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

Immature ashy clubtails keep diminutive size ranges and dull body colors even though adults know blue, brown, gray or turquoise eyes and black-brown, gray-green, yellow-marked bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis links round eggs laid every 2 to 3 inches (5.08 to 7.62 centimeters) in shoreline water, multimolting larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted tenerals. Metamorphosed, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals must mature physically and sexually to master flitting, sailing patrols until after 7 p.m., mate and manipulate eggs into 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 ashy clubtail dragonfly habitats offer, northward to southward, season-coldest 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 ashy clubtails.

Egg-filled ovipositors, gray-green thoraxes, two claspers, unclubbed abdomens with spearhead-patterned segments and tips more yellowed than darkened qualify as adult brown-, gray- or violet-eyed female hallmarks. Adult males reveal blue eyes, brown crests, green faces, brown-and-yellow-striped gray thoraxes, pale-shinned, pale-thighed brown legs, black-brown abdomens with yellow spearpointed patterns and three black claspers. Adults show off 1.81- to 2.25-inch (46- to 57-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.38- to 1.61-inch (35- to 41-millimeter) abdomens and 1.10- to 1.38-inch (28- to 35-millimeter) hindwings.

Brown-and-yellow-striped bulky, gray thoraxes, gray-sided, spearpoint-patterned black-brown abdomens, roller-coaster, up-and-down serial uuuu flights tell ashy clubtails from other odonates in North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats.

ashy clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus lividus); U.S. Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management's Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), Mason Neck, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Sunday, April 24, 2016, 11:04:14: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, 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:

ashy clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus lividus); Straight Fork, Highlands County, Virginia: Monday, June 12, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/35315052246/

ashy clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus lividus); U.S. Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management's Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), Mason Neck, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Sunday, April 24, 2016, 11:04:14: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashy_Clubtail_-_Gomphus_lividus,_Meadowood_Farm_SRMA,_Mason_Neck,_Virginia_-_26603400826.jpg; Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/26603400826/

For further information:

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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. "Phanogomphus lividus (Selys, 1854: 53 as Gomphus) -- Ashy Clubtail." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera, Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Gomphidae (Clubtails) > Phanogomphus Carle 1986 (common name TBD).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

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Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=1251

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Sélys-Longchamps, M.Edm. (Michel Edmond) de. "Synopsis des Gomphines: 42. Gomphus lividus, De Selys." Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, tome XXII (Série 1), IIme partie: 53. Bruxelles (Brussels), Belgium: M. Hayez, 1854.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39438405
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044083931691?urlappend=%3Bseq=65

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
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