American Emerald Dragonfly Habitats: Bronze Thorax, Ringed Dark Abdomen

Summary: North American emerald dragonfly habitats get dot-tipped wings, gold-haired bronze thoraxes, green eyes, pale-ringed dark abdomens and ridged legs.

American emerald dragonfly (Cordulia shurtleffii); Mustoe, Highland County ("Virginia's Little Switzerland"), west central Virginia; Monday, June 12, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American emerald dragonfly habitats articulate distribution ranges from Maine through North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and everywhere in-between and in Alaska, Canada's 10 provinces and Pacific and Rocky Mountain states.

American emeralds bear their common name for abundant bio-geographies in Canada and the United States and brilliant greens and the scientific name Cordulia shurtleffii (Shurtleff's club). The scientific name commemorates Carlton Atwood Shurtleff (June 18, 1840-June 26, 1864), Harvard University Zoology graduate and Union Army medical cadet until Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Scientific designations defer to descriptions in 1866 by Samuel Hubbard Scudder (April 13, 1837-May 17, 1911), first North American insect palaeontologist and resident of Boston, Massachusetts.

American emeralds life cycles expect beaver ponds, bog lakes, fens, forest pools and sedge marshes in usually forested niches within Northeast, Northwest and Rocky Mountain habitats.

April through September function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though May through June furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout American emerald coastal and inland niches.

American emeralds go on ever-changing, non-territorial 10- to 25-foot (3.05- to 7.62-meter) and 30- to 80-foot (9.14- to 24.38-meter) patrols of open waters and waterside vegetation. They hang from twiggy perches or on flat-leafed surfaces even though they hasten after, and hover over, prey as hawkers, not perched gleaner and sallier hunters. Cool morning to afternoon investigations involve flushed or opportunistic, low-flying or low-lying invertebrates, especially crane flies, during same-species, solitary or springtime mixed-species feeding swarms with baskettails.

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

Immature American emerals keep to red-violet eyes even though adult females and males know brilliant blacks, bronzy browns, iridescent greens, metallic orange-browns, pristine whites, shining golds.

Incomplete metamorphosis links round eggs laid by females at 2- to 3-foot (0.61- to 0.91-meter) intervals in shaded waters late afternoons, multi-molting larvae and molted tenerals. Nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs metamorphose into shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weak-flying tenerals that mature physically and sexually to mate in flight 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 emerald members of the Corduliidae dragonfly family.

North American emerald dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, north- to southward, from minus 45 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 15 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 American emeralds.

Cylindrical abdomens with white-spotted lower edges to third segments and two claspers as long as the ninth and tenth abdominal segments qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal brown faces, brown ridged legs, clubbed orange-brown-marked, pale-ringed black abdomens, dot-tipped wings, forked claspers, golden-haired, green-sutured bronze-brown thoraxes and green eyes and foreheads. Adults show off 1.69- to 1.97-inch (43- to 50-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.18- to 1.46-inch (30- to 37-millimeter) abdomens and 1.14- to 1.26-inch (29- to 32-millimeter) hindwings.

Dot-tipped wings, gold-haired, green-sutured, bronze-brown thoraxes, green eyes, pale-ringed black abdomens and ridged legs tell American emeralds from other odonates in North American emerald dragonfly habitats.

close-to-the-ground American emerald dragonfly (Cordulia shurtleffii); Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, Bitterroot River Valley, southwestern Montana; Monday, May 23, 2011; photo credit: Bob Danley/USFWS: USFWS-Mountain Prairie (USFWS Mountain Prairie), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

American emerald dragonfly (Cordulia shurtleffii); Mustoe, Highland County ("Virginia's Little Switzerland"), west central Virginia; Monday, June 12, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/35145366371/

close-to-the-ground American emerald dragonfly (Cordulia shurtleffii); Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, Bitterroot River Valley, southwestern Montana; Monday, May 23, 2011; photo credit: Bob Danley/USFWS: USFWS-Mountain Prairie (USFWS Mountain Prairie), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/16109399307/

For further information:

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Scudder, S. H. (Samuel Hubbard). 1866. "Notes on Some Odonata from the White Mountains of New Hampshire: Cordulia shurtleffii nov. sp." Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. X 1864-1866 (Oct. 4, 1865: 217. Boston MA: Printed for The Society by William Wood & Co., New York; Trübner & Co., London, England, 1866.
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Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924076353469?urlappend=%3Bseq=225
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