Taper-Tailed Darner Dragonfly Habitats: Crescents, Stripes, Triangles

Summary: North American taper-tailed dragonfly habitats get green-tan paired triangles on brown abdomens, yellow crescent-marked legs and yellow S-marked abdomens.

taper-tailed darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna antilope) in Virginia; Thursday, May 30, 2013, 16:19: Robert Webster (xpda), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

North American taper-tailed darner dragonfly habitats appall cultivators, but not naturalists, with shallow waters and soggy soils in coastal plain distribution ranges from Massachusetts through Louisiana and into inland Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Taper-tailed darners bear their common name for tapering, knitting needle-shaped abdomens and the scientific name Gomphaeschna antilope (mushroom-like [claspers on] misshapen [spear-shaped dragonfly with] horn-like [claspers]). Common names consolidate scientific committee consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose seventh Bulletin of American Odonatology compares Illinois and Georgia river cruiser subspecies. Scientific designations delve into descriptions in 1874 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), nephew-in-law of physicist-astronomer Friedrich Bessel (July 22, 1784-March 17, 1846).

Taper-tailed darner life cycles expect shallow sphagnum bogs and swamps with ground to treetop vegetation, light-filled pinewood clearings and sometimes neighboring coastal plain rivers and streams.

February through July function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though April or May furnishes wildife mapping opportunities in all North American taper-tailed darner niches.

Male taper-tailed darners go back and forth, quickly downstream and slowly back upstream, with minimal wingbeats over a series of 1.5-foot (0.46-meter) foraging and patrolling territories. They hang down from smaller branches than harlequin darners even though, unlike their pygmy darner relatives, they hold vertically onto trunks, hover and hunt as hawkers. They incline toward solitary hunts and patrols even though, like harlequin darners, windy weather inspires their swarmed forages, especially of termites, on leeward sides of trees.

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

Immature taper-tailed darners keep to dull, faded, gray-brown and small sizes just as diminutive adults know woodland camouflage-friendly blacks, blues, browns, green-browns, green-tans, whites and yellows.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads from rod-shaped eggs laid in wet wood just above water levels to adult-like, multi-molting, nonflying larvae, naiads or nymphs and to molted tenerals. Recently emerged, shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weak-flying tenerals must maintain permanent colors and manage physical and sexual maturity before mating and then manipulating eggs into ovipositing sites. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish pygmy darner members of the Aeshnidae darner family.

North American taper-tailed darner dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to minus 1.11 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 taper-tailed darners.

Amber-tinted wings, brown thoraxes with marked sides and striped shoulders and egg-thickened abdomens with brown-orange spots and white-marked sides qualify as brown-eyed, brown-faced, brown-legged female hallmarks. Males reveal green-brown eyes; white-brown faces; yellow crescent-marked hind legs; black-marked, blue-striped brown thoraxes; yellow-edged wings; and cylindrical, yellow-, S-marked brown abdomens with green-tan paired triangles. Adults show off 2.09- to 2.36-inch (53- to 60-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.49- to 1.81-inch (38- to 46-millimeter) abdomens and 1.18- to 1.46-inch (30- to 37-millimeter) hind-wings.

Abdomens with paired triangles and S-like marks and thoraxes with marks and stripes tell taper-tailed darners from other odonates in North American taper-tailed darner dragonfly habitats.

Lookalike harlequin darner (Gomphaeschna furcillata) overlaps with taper-tailed darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna antilope) in Northern Virginia; harlequin darner in Mason Neck State Park, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 15:19: 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:

taper-tailed darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna antilope) in Virginia; Thursday, May 30, 2013, 16:19: Robert Webster (xpda), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gomphaeschna_antilope_P1400423a.jpg

Lookalike harlequin darner (Gomphaeschna furcillata) overlaps with taper-tailed darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna antilope) in Northern Virginia; harlequin darner in Mason Neck State Park, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 15:19: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harlequin_Darner_-_Gomphaeschna_furcillata,_Mason_Neck_State_Park_-_6287764458.jpg; Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/6287764458/

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. "Gomphaeschna antilope (Hagen, 1874: 354 as Aeschna) -- Taper-tailed Darner." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Aeshnidae Rambur, 1842: 181 (Darners) > Gomphaeschna Selys, 1871 (Pygmy Darners).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

"Gomphaeschna antilope." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Gomphaeschna.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=162

Hagen, Dr. H. (Hermann). "The Odonate Fauna of Georgia, From Original Drawings Now in Possession of Dr. J. LeConte, and in the British Museum: 8. Aeschna antilope spec. nov." Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 16 (1873-1874), Section of Entomology (March 25, 1874): 354-355. Boston MA: Printed for the Society, 1874.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41807634
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822009248048?urlappend=%3Bseq=370

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

"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