Gray Petaltail Dragonfly Habitats: Dark Long Body, Dark Wide-Set Eyes

Summary: North American gray petaltail dragonfly habitats from the Great Plains eastward to the Atlantic get rare black-gray bodies and brown-gray, wide-set eyes.

gray petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi) basking on Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in Maryland; Tuesday, May 19, 2009: Kerry Wixted, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American gray petaltail dragonfly habitats amass arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards in spring-watered distribution ranges from New Hampshire through Florida northwestward into Indiana and Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

Gray petaltails bear their common name for color and petal-like claspers and the scientific name Tachopteryx thoreyi (swift-winged [for specimen collector, M.] Thorey [of Hamburg, Germany]). Common names cite the consensus of scientific committees convened by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose Executive Council confers program-, publication-, research-related awards and grants. Scientific designations disclose descriptions in 1858 by Michel Edmond de Sélys Longchamps (May 25, 1813-Dec. 11, 1900), with Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893).

Gray petaltail lifespans expect hillside permanent seepages and springs, mucky shallow pond or stream seeps and sedge-covered fens in deciduous forests, open woodlands and pine flatlands.

March through August function as optimal, southern flight seasons even though June furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities in all the gray petaltail dragonfly's northeastern and southeastern niches.

Females and males go for perches and roosts up to 15 feet (4.57 meters) above ground-level on fallen logs, large stones, rock walls and tree trunks. They hunt as salliers by heading from perches after passersby or by honing lazy-eight, search-and-seize foraging flights after inhabitants of forest edges or in woodland clearings. Everything about sallying gray petaltails interests palaeo-entomologists since this cryptic-colored, large-sized, small-eyed most primitive living odonate inclines vertically from tree trunks and interacts amiably with humans.

Channelization, dredging, hydrological regime, riparian and wetland modifications, impoundments, pollution, siltation and timber harvests jeopardize dissolved oxygen- and water-quality dependent North American gray petaltail dragonfly habitats.

Dragonfly specialists know little of gray petaltail pre-adult life cycle stages other than that immature females and males keep dull, faded, light, pale, small-sized color forms.

Incomplete metamorphosis leads gray petaltails from eggs in tiny puddles or waterlogged soils, through egg-hatched, multi-molting larvae, naiads or nymphs in leaf-laden, sodden soils, to maturity. Adults mature sexually in two to three weeks before moving along trunks for mates high up in forest clearings and edges and for ovipositing low down. Grayback petaltails in the 150-million-year-old Petaluridae family need aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, crane flies, damselflies, dobsonflies, dragonflies, fish, gnats, mosquitoes, spiders, tadpoles, water fleas and worms.

North American gray petaltail dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.77 to minus 6.66 degrees Celsius).

Beech, black birch, black, red, scarlet and white oak, hemlock, pignut, shagbark and sweet pignut hickory, pine, red maple and tulip-tree promote gray petaltail life cycles.

Black legs, black-crossbanded gray-brown faces, black-purple-gray abdomens and thoraxes, black-striped shoulders and sides, brown-gray eyes and dark, long, narrow wingtip cells (stigmata) quicken adult female identifications. Adult males reveal the same black, brown, gray and purple color mixes as mature females even as they retain less chunky thoraxes and longer, slimmer abdomens. Adults show off 2.79- to 3.23-inch (71- to 82-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.97- to 2.40-inch (50- to 61-millimeter) abdomens and 1.77- to 2.21-inch (45- to 56-millimeter) hindwings.

Black-gray, elongated bodies and brown-gray wideset eyes versus yellow spots respectively tell gray and black petaltails from relatives in overlapping North American gray petaltail dragonfly habitats.

(left) gray petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi) with prey (right), blue dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplex longipennis), at Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), Mason Neck, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, June 25, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), 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:

gray petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi) basking on Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in Maryland; Tuesday, May 19, 2009: Kerry Wixted, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwixted0/3546550509/

(left) gray petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi) with prey (right), blue dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplex longipennis), at Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), Mason Neck, southernmost Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, June 25, 2016: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/27827931671/

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. "Tachopteryx thoreyi (Hagen in Selys, 1859: 373 as Uropetala) -- Gray Petaltail." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Petaluridae, Tillyard, 1917 (Petaltails).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

Dunkle, Sidney W. Dragonflies Through Binoculars: A Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America. New York NY: Oxford University Press: Field Guide Series, 2000.

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

Sélys Longchamps, Edm. (Edmond) de; H.A. (Hermann August) Hagen. "122. Uropetala thoreyi, Hagen." Monographie des Gomphines 633-635. Bruxelles, Belgium; Leipzig, Germany: C. (Charles) Muquardt, 1858.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39824700

"Tachopteryx thoreyi." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Petaluridae > Tachopteryx.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=2890