Harlequin Darner Dragonfly Habitats: Big Eyes, T-Spots, Woodland Color

Summary: Big-eyed, woodland-colored bodies with long abdomens and T-spotted foreheads hover for hours in North American harlequin darner dragonfly habitats.

harlequin darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna furcillata); Mason Neck State Park, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 15:19: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

North American harlequin darner dragonfly habitats applaud arborists, gardeners, naturalists and stewards with boggy distribution ranges everywhere in-between Nova Scotia through Ontario, Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky and Arkansas and through Florida and Texas.

Harlequin darner dragonflies bear their common name because of variegated body patterns, from the Italian Arlecchino, name of a male character in bright-patterned, sometimes green, costumes. They carry the scientific name Gomphaeschna furcillata (mushroom-like [claspers on] misshapen [spear-shaped dragonfly with] fork-like [claspers]) as pygmy darner members of the Aeshnidae darner dragonfly family. Thomas Say's (June 27, 1787-Oct. 10, 1834) descriptions in 1839 of Dr. Thaddeus William Harris's (Nov. 12, 1795-Jan. 16, 1856) specimen from Cambridge, Massachusetts, dominate taxonomies.
Harlequin darner life cycles expect seasonal and spring-fed pools and shallow bogs, bottomlands, ditches, fields, marshes, ponds and swamps with alder, bald cypress, cedar and sphagnum.

January through August function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though June furnishes wildlife mapping opportunities throughout North America's harlequin darner coastal and inland niches.

Male harlequin darners gaze alternately in all directions during hour-long, midday glides up to 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) above on aquatic and terrestrial forages and patrols. They sometimes hang from branches or hold onto trunks while hunting, like emeralds, gliders, river cruisers, saddlebags and spiketails, as hawkers of high-up or low-down prey. Coolness and windiness respectively impel increasing body temperatures by inclining atop ground, logs and rocks and inspire initiating swarmed itineraries on the leeward sides of trees.

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

Green-eyed, immature harlequin darners keep brown bodies even though all adults know gray-brown- and white-green, with only males keeping blue-, green-, orange-, white-, yellow-marked, dark bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis links rod-shaped eggs laid in wet wood 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) above water levels, adult-like, multi-molting, non-flying larvae, naiads or nymphs and molted tenerals. Recently emerged, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals manage complex, mottled green, woodland camouflage-friendly permanence and physical and sexual maturity before mating and manipulating eggs into rotting wood. 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 harlequin darner dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 6.66 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 harlequin darners.

Green-tinged gray-brown eyes; green-white, side-striped brown thoraxes; amber-winged, club-tipped, green-white-, rust-orange-spotted black abdomens with green-white triangles; and narrow, non-functional, short claspers qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal black-brown foreheads; green eyes; green-brown faces; blue-, green-, yellow-, shoulder-striped, gray-white-haired, orange side-marked brown thoraxes; and clear-winged, cylindrical, green-spotted, orange-yellow hook-marked black abdomens. Adults show off 2.05- to 2.36-inch (52- to 60-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.54- to 1.81-inch (39 to 46-millimeter) abdomens and 1.14- to 1.42-inch (29- to 36-millimeter) hindwings.

Big eyes, black-based T-spotted foreheads, forked claspers,  hour-long hovers, long abdomens and woodland colors tell harlequins from other odonates in North American harlequin darner dragonfly habitats.

harlequin darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna furcillata); Penobscot County, northeastern Maine; Friday, July 2, 2010, 18:23: Mike Ostrowski, CC BY SA 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:

harlequin darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna furcillata); Mason Neck State Park, 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

harlequin darner dragonfly (Gomphaeschna furcillata); Penobscot County, northeastern Maine; Friday, July 2, 2010, 18:23: Mike Ostrowski, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harlequin_Darner.jpg

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 furcillata (Say, 1839: 14 as Aeshna) -- Harlequin 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 furcillata." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Aeschnidae > Gomphaeschna.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=163

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

Say, Thomas. "Descriptions of New North American Neuropterous Insects, and Observations on Some Already Described. Read July 12, 1836: 7. AE. furcillata." Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia: vol. VIII, part I: 14-15. Philadelphia PA: Merrihew and Thompson, 1839.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/24623001
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106432990?urlappend=%3Bseq=24

"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/