Fine-Lined Emerald Dragonfly Habitats: Striped Brown Abdomen and Thorax

Summary: North American fine-lined emerald dragonfly habitats get fine, vertical, white stripes on black-brown abdominal bases and brown-and-green thoracic sides.

fine-lined emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora filosa), Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Monday, Sep. 25, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American fine-lined emerald dragonfly habitats ask more questions than they answer in aquatic plant-friendly distribution ranges from New Jersey through Florida, Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and everywhere in-between.

Fine-lined emeralds bear their common name for thin-, vertical-, white-striped abdomens and thoraxes and green eyes and the scientific name Somatochlora filosa (green-boded [and] finely striped). Common names coordinate with scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 16th Bulletin of American Odonatology considers 75 species in Washington state. Scientific designations defer to descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), founder of the Cambridge Entomological Club in Massachusetts in 1874.

Fine-lined emerald life cycles expect acidic, pine-forested, sandy, slow, small streams with emergent vegetation, boggy forest trickles, pine-forested rivers, sheet-flow swamp thickets and spring-fed, tannin-stained seeps.

June through December function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though August through September furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout coastal and inland fine-lined emerald habitats.

Fine-lined emeralds go early in the morning and evening and late in the afternoon on food-searching, mate-seeking patrols down dirt roads, over water and through clearings. They hang onto twiggy perches from near-ground through treetop levels and hover over 2- to 3-square-yard (1.67- to 2.51-square-meter) patrols 3 feet (0.91 meters) above ground. Itineraries involve dense, pine-forested shade, grassy, herbaceous, woody edges of pine-forested rivers, seeps, streams, swamps and trickles and open, sunny woodland clearings, paths, roads and trails.

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

Immature female fine-lined emeralds keep eyes red-brown, segments six to eight vertically flattened and wings orange-tipped and orange-tinted until becoming green, cylindrical and brown with age.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles lead from eggs laid by unaccompanied females in silt-laden sand banks to multimolting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and to molted tenerals. Recently emerged, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals mature physically and sexually to mate and manipulate eggs into ovipositing sites in mysterious breeding habitats that merit scientific research. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish striped emerald members of the Corduliidae dragonfly family.

North American fine-lined emerald dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 10 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.33 to minus 3.88 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.

Brown abdominal bases and thoraxes, curved sled runner-like, long ovipositors and sexual dimorphism (feminine head-body length and width larger than males) qualify as adult female hallmarks. Green-eyed, black-legged, long-limbed, clear-winged adult males reveal blue-green-topped brown-white faces; brown-and-green thoraxes with four narrow side stripes; base-striped, dark, long, pale-ringed, slender abdomens; pointed-tip, outward-curved claspers. Adults show off 2.05- to 2.72-inch (52- to 69-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.61- to 2.13-inch (41- to 54-millimeter) abdomens and 1.38- to 1.81-inch (35- to 46-millimeter) hindwings.

Fine, narrow, vertical, white stripes on black-brown abdominal bases and brown-and-green thoracic sides tell fine-lined emeralds from other odonates in North American fine-lined emerald dragonfly habitats.

male fine-lined emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora filosa) visiting evening primrose (Oenothera spp.); Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia: Walter Sanford @Geodialist, via Twitter Sep. 19, 2017

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

fine-lined emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora filosa), Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Monday, Sep. 25, 2017: Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/37320967401/

male fine-lined emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora filosa) visiting evening primrose (Oenothera spp.); Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia: Walter Sanford @Geodialist, via Twitter Sep. 19, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/Geodialist/status/910067311507259393

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. "Somatochlora Selys, 1871 (Striped Emeralds)." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Corduliidae Selys, 1850 (Emeralds).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

Hagen, Hermann. "1. C. filosa! Cordulia filosa Hagen!" Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America. With a List of the South American Species: 136. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. IV, art. I. Translated from Latin to English by Philip Reese Uhler. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, July 1861.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/18918239
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t32241f34?urlappend=%3Bseq=112

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

"Somatochlora filosa." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Corduliidae > Somatochlora.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=867

"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/

Walter Sanford ‏@Geodialist. "Fine-lined Emerald dragonfly redux (Part 1)." Twitter. Sept. 19, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/Geodialist/status/910067311507259393