Treetop Emerald Dragonfly Habitats: Green Eyes Joined, Striped Thorax

Summary: North American treetop emerald dragonfly habitats get dark-tipped clear wings, green eyes seamed together and slant-striped brown-green thoraxes.

treetop emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora provocans); Charles County, south central Maryland; Friday, July 22, 2011: Mike Ostrowski from North Bethesda, Maryland, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

North American treetop emerald dragonfly habitats assemble distribution ranges in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Treetop emeralds bear their common name for flights and perches high in tree canopies and for greenness and the scientific name Somatochlora provocans (green-bodied [and] provocative). Common names comply with scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 17th Bulletin of American Odonatology concerns damselflies and dragonflies in Louisiana. Descriptions in 1903 by Philip Powell Calvert (Jan. 29, 1871-Aug. 23, 1961), husband of botanist Amelia Catherine Smith (Feb. 23, 1876-Dec. 15, 1965), define scientific designations.

Treetop emerald life cycles expect boggy seeps, forest seepages and trickles and sandy-bottomed seeps and streams with pine forest dirt roads and edges and midday shade.

June through September function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though July furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities in all treetop emerald coastal and inland habitat niches.

Treetop emeralds go out low to the ground early in the morning and late in the afternoon on forages for invertebrate prey and patrols for mates. They hang from shaded, twiggy perches and, when they hunt by hawking flushed, opportunistic or stalked prey, head up high in the tree canopy at midday. Food-, mate- and perch-searching investigations involve 6- to 30-plus-foot (1.83- to 9.14-plus-meter) itineraries respectively above boggy watersides and waters and over woodland clearings, edges and paths.

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

Immature treetop emeralds keep red-brown eyes even though adults know green eyes on dull brown-yellow-, metallic black-, blue-, brown-, green-, pale yellow- and pristine white-colored bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads treetop emeralds from egg stages, through hatching as little adult-like, multimolting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs, to molting as shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Treetop emerald eggs, immature and mature stages maintain mysterious manifestations within, and mergers through, three-cycled metamorphoses within meager distribution ranges away from mainstream North American metropolises. 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 treetop 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 treetop emeralds.

Cylindrical abdomens not basally constricted into narrow-, wasp-waisted silhouettes, diamond-like ringed ninth and 10th abdominal segments, long ovipositors and short claspers qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black-blue foreheads; brown-yellow faces; green-highlighted, side-spotted, side-striped black-brown abdomens; green-highlighted black-brown thoraxes with two straight, white-yellow stripes on each side; and pliers-like claspers. Adults show off 2.09- to 2.21-inch (53- to 56-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.46- to 1.69-inch (37- to 43-millimeter) abdomens and 1.29- to 1.46-inch (33- to 37-millimeter) hindwings.

Dark-tipped clear wings, green eyes widely seamed together and slant-, white-yellow-striped brown-green thoraxes tell treetop emeralds from other odonates in North American treetop emerald dragonfly habitats.

"dorsal and left profile views respectively of the tenth abdominal segment and appendages X 10" of a male treetop emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora provocans); figures drawn with aid of camera lucida for Philip P. Calvert, "Additions to the Odonata of New Jersey, with Descriptions of two New Species," Entomological News, and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XIV, no. 2 (February 1903), Plate III, figures 7 and 8 (lower right), opposite page 33: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

treetop emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora provocans); Charles County, south central Maryland; Friday, July 22, 2011: Mike Ostrowski from North Bethesda, Maryland, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Somatochlora_provocans.jpg; Mike Ostrowski (BCNH09), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/38976602@N05/5976894256/

"dorsal and left profile views respectively of the tenth abdominal segment and appendages X 10" of a male treetop emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora provocans); figures drawn with aid of camera lucida for Philip P. Calvert, "Additions to the Odonata of New Jersey, with Descriptions of two New Species," Entomological News, and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XIV, no. 2 (February 1903), Plate III, figures 7 and 8 (lower right), opposite page 33: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4614749;
Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/24623805;
Public Domain, via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112017792323?urlappend=%3Bseq=52

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.

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Available @ https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=ArY3&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gss=angs-c&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=philip+powell&gsfn_x=0&gsln=calvert&gsln_x=0&msbdy=1871&msgdy=1901&msddy=1961&mssng=amelia+catherine&mssns=smith&catbucket=rstp&MSAV=1&uidh=ft7&pcat=BMD_DEATH&h=111928830&dbid=60525&indiv=1&ml_rpos=3

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

Calvert, Philip P. "Additions to the Odonata of New Jersey, With Descriptions of Two New Species: Somatochlora provocans, n. sp." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XIV, no. 2 (February 1903): 39-41. Philadelphia PA: Entomological Rooms of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1903.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/24623831
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112017792323?urlappend=%3Bseq=59

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

"Somatochlora provocans." 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=885

"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/