Arrow Clubtail Dragonfly: Bouncy, Exclamation Point-Marked, Long Body

Summary: North American arrow clubtail dragonfly habitats get green eyes, black-brown, green-yellow exclamation point-marked thoraxes and triangle marked abdomens.

just emerged teneral female of arrow clubtail dragonfly (Stylurus spiniceps); Lion's Park, Jackson City, Jackson County, south central Michigan; Friday, July 11, 2014, 14:11:00: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American arrow clubtail dragonfly habitats attract lakeshore, riverside and sand garden-loving cultivators and woodland-loving naturalists in distribution ranges from Maine through Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Minnesota and Ontario, Quebec, and everywhere in-between.

Arrow clubtails bear their common name for arrow-like, fast flight and for clubbed, elongated abdomens and the scientific name Stylurus spiniceps ([elongate abdomen style-tailed [and] spine-headed). Common names come about through scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 34th Bulletin of American Odonatology covers North American odonates in Oregon. Descriptions in 1862 by Benjamin Dann Walsh (Sept. 21, 1808-Nov. 18, 1869), London-born proponent in Rock Island, Illinois, of biological insect pest controls, drive scientific designations.

Arrow clubtail life cycles expect large lakes, rivers and streams with long riffles, slow to moderate currents and sandy bottoms in the brushy, grassy, forested Piedmont.

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

Arrow clubtails go out, sometimes at midday and typically from late afternoon to dark, for mates, perches and prey on brush, grassy blades or tree leaves. Their weight heaves the leafy surfaces onto which they hold vertically downward whereas they head out and hover with their abdomens slightly raised over water surfaces. Their itineraries inject arrow-like, long, low, straight, sweeping interludes and fluttering, gliding intervals into a bouncy flight along shorelines, far out over water and in shade.

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

Immature arrow clubtails keep brushy, grassy, sandy, woody lake-, river- and stream-kind colors even though adults know green eyes and black-, brown-, green- and yellow-marked bodies.

Incompletely metamorphosing life cycles launch round eggs laid by unaccompanied females over open water; multi-molting, non-flying larvae, naiads or nymphs; and molted, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Brown-, gray- or olive-brown-eyed tenerals master permanent colors and physical and sexual maturation in woodlands away from breeding habitats, mate and manipulate eggs into ovipositing sites. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish hanging clubtail members of the Gomphidae dragonfly family.

North American arrow clubtail dragonfly habitats offer, northward to southward, season-coldest temperatures from minus 45 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 15 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 arrow clubtails.

Two curved spines behind each simple side eye and two between each simple eye and inner-eye margin, ovipositors and two claspers qualify as adult female hallmarks. Adult males reveal green eyes; brown faces; black-haired and yellow-striped thoraxes with upside-down exclamation point patterns; black legs; narrow-clubbed, pale-spotted, triangle-patterned black abdomens; and three claspers. Adults show off 2.25- to 2.68-inch (57- to 68-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.77- to 1.97-inch (45- to 50-millimeter) abdomens and 1.38- to 1.54-inch (35- to 39-millimeter) hindwings.

Exclamation point-patterned thoraxes; narrow-clubbed, triangle-patterned abdomens; and elongated ninth segments tell dark-bodied, dark-legged, green-white-yellow-marked arrow clubtails from other odonates in North American arrow clubtail dragonfly habitats.

exuvia (exoskeletal remains after insect molting) of arrow clubtail dragonfly (Stylurus spiniceps), collected along Potomac River, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia: Walter Sanford @Geodialist, via Twitter Jan. 6, 2017

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

just emerged teneral female of arrow clubtail dragonfly (Stylurus spiniceps); Lion's Park, Jackson City, Jackson County, south central Michigan; Friday, July 11, 2014, 14:11:00: Don Henise (Kiskadee 3), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiskadee_3/14614809076/

exuvia (exoskeletal remains after insect molting) of arrow clubtail dragonfly (Stylurus spiniceps), collected along Potomac River, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia: Walter Sanford @Geodialist, via Twitter Jan. 6, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/Geodialist/status/817294993492770817

For further information:

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Berger, Cynthia. Dragonflies. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books: Wild Guide, 2004.

Bright, Ethan. "Stylurus spiniceps (Walsh, 1862: 389 as Macrogomphus) - Arrow Clubtail." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Gomphidae (Clubtails) > Stylurus Needham, 1897 (Handing Clubtails).
Available @ http://www.aquaticinsects.org/sp/Odonata/sp_oom.html

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

"Stylurus spiniceps." James Cook University-Medusa: The Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies > Anisoptera > Gomphidae > Stylurus.
Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=1863

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Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/

Walsh, Benjamin D. (Dann). "List of the Pseudoneuroptera of Illinois, Contained in the Cabinet of the Writer, With Descriptions of Over Forty New Species, and Notes on Their Structural Affinities: Macrogomphus? spiniceps, n.sp." Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XIIII: 389-391. Philadelphia PA: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1862.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1951861
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015035553265?urlappend=%3Bseq=401
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/jstor-4059488/4059488#page/n29/mode/1up

Walter Sanford @Geodialist. "Stylurus spiniceps exuvia." Twitter. Jan. 6, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/Geodialist/status/817294993492770817