Ocellated Darner Dragonfly Habitats: Big Eyes, Brown Wingtips, Spots

Summary: North American ocellated darner dragonfly habitats get big eyes, brown-based and tipped wings and yellow-spotted sides on gray-brown bodies and legs.

Color comparisons of four males, two ocellated darner dragonflies (Boyeria grafiana) and two fawn darner dragonflies (Boyeria vinosa), including notations of ocellated darner's "clear green" face versus fawn darner's green face "obscured with brownish," were made by American botanist and entomologist Edward Bruce (E.B.) Williamson (July 10, 1877-Feb. 23, 1933) in his description of the ocellated darner dragonfly on page 2 in "Two new North American Dragonflies (Odonata)," published in Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XVII, no. 1 (January 1907): Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014, 17:01, image of Fawn Darner (Boyeria vinosa), Gatineau River, Cantley, Quebec, Canada: D. Gordon E. Robertson (Dger), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American ocellated darner dragonfly habitats accommodate naturalists in cultivator-unfriendly distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through Georgia, Tennessee through Pennsylvania, New York through Minnesota, Ontario and Prince Edward Island and everywhere in-between.

Ocellated darners bear their common name for eye-like, spotted thoracic sides and knitting needle-like abdomens and the scientific name Boyeria grafiana (Boyer's [and] Graf's [darner dragonfly]). Scientific names commemorate entomologist Étienne Laurent Joseph Hippolyte Boyer de Fonscolombe (July 22, 1722-Feb. 13, 1853) from Aix-en-Provence, France, and naturalist J.L. Graf from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descriptions in 1907 by Edward Bruce Williamson (July 10, 1877-Feb. 28, 1933), University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Research Associate in Ann Arbor, determine scientific designations.

Ocellated darner dragonfly life cycles expect cold, fast-flowing, rocky streams in woodlands; cold, rocky, swift-flowing rivers in forested uplands; cool, deep, rocky lakes in open woodlands.

June through October function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though August through September furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout coastal and inland ocellated darner niches.

Ocellated darner dragonflies go from night-time roosts in dense woodland undergrowth to day-time resting places in forest shade from morning to late afternoon during warmer weather. They hunt, like emeralds, gliders and saddlebags, as hawkers from morning until after nightfall during cooler weather and from late afternoon into night on warmer days. Big eyes, clawed, three-segmented legs and projectable, retractable lower lips investigate mates and prey on brushy, debris-strewn rocky shores slower than darners other than fawn darners.

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

Immature ocellated darners keep to dull-colored, small-sized bodies, brown eyes just as adult females and males know blue and green eyes on brown, green, yellow bodies.

Incomplete metamorphosis lets egg-hatched, multi-molting, nonflying larvae naiads or nymphs look like land-dwelling, little, lusterless adults and links immature stages with molted, shiny-winged, soft-bodied, weak-flying tenerals. Recently emerged tenerals manage permanent colors and mature physically and sexually before mating and manipulating eggs from egg-thickened abdomens, through short ovipositors, into sites for egg-depositing. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish spotted darner members of the Aeshnidae darner family.

North American ocellated darner dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to south-ward, 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 ocellated darners.

Big, blue eyes, claspers shorter than the 10th segment, ovipositors and thick abdomens qualify as adult hallmarks of gray-brown-bodied, legged and winged, green- and yellow-marked females. Adult males reveal brown abdomens with yellow-spotted rows, brown thoraxes with brown-based, brown-tipped wings, double-, yellow-spotted sides and green-striped shoulders and green- and tan-washed brown eyes. Adults show off 2.48- to 2.56-inch (63- to 65-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.81- to 2.01-inch (46- to 51-millimeter) abdomens and 1.58- to 1.69-inch (40- to 43-millimeter) hindwings.

Big eyes, brown-based, brown-tipped wings, double-, yellow-spotted sides and gray-brown bodies and legs tell ocellated darners from other odonates in North American ocellated darner dragonfly habitats.

American botanist and entomologist E.B. (Edward Bruce) Williamson's scientific contributions including describing the ocellated darner dragonfly (Boyeria grafiana) and creating varieties of irises, especially bearded, at Longfield Iris Farm, the still family-run nursery that he founded in Bluffton, Indiana; "E.B. Williamson [Edward Bruce Williamson, Museum of Zoology]," undated portrait of E.B. Williamson, University of Michigan Faculty and Staff Portraits collection, item HS19392, Bentley Historical Library -- Bentley Image Bank, University of Michigan North Campus, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan: CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via WikimediaCommons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Color comparisons of four males, two ocellated darner dragonflies (Boyeria grafiana) and two fawn darner dragonflies (Boyeria vinosa), including notations of ocellated darner's "clear green" face versus fawn darner's green face "obscured with brownish," were made by American botanist and entomologist Edward Bruce (E.B.) Williamson (July 10, 1877-Feb. 23, 1933) in his description of the ocellated darner dragonfly on page 2 in "Two new North American Dragonflies (Odonata)," published in Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. XVII, no. 1 (January 1907): Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014, 17:01, image of Fawn Darner (Boyeria vinosa), Gatineau River, Cantley, Quebec, Canada: D. Gordon E. Robertson (Dger), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fawn_Darner_(Boyeria_vinosa),_Cantley.jpg

American botanist and entomologist E.B. (Edward Bruce) Williamson's scientific contributions including describing the ocellated darner dragonfly (Boyeria grafiana) and creating varieties of irises, especially bearded, at Longfield Iris Farm, the still family-run nursery that he founded in Bluffton, Indiana; "E.B. Williamson [Edward Bruce Williamson, Museum of Zoology]," undated portrait of E.B. Williamson, University of Michigan Faculty and Staff Portraits collection, item HS19392, Bentley Historical Library -- Bentley Image Bank, University of Michigan North Campus, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan: CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Bruce_Williamson.jpg; CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via University of Michigan Library Digital Collections -- Bentley Historical Library -- Bentley Image Bank @ https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhl/x-hs19392/hs19392

For further information:

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Available @ https://twitter.com/lotodragonflies/status/1029530876554575872

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.

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Available via James Cook University-Medusa @ https://medusa.jcu.edu.au/Dragonflies/openset/displaySpecies.php?spid=122

Bright, Ethan. "Boyeria grafiana Williamson, 1907: 1 - Ocellated Darner." Aquatic Insects of Michigan > Odonata (Dragon- and Damselflies) of Michigan > Anisoptera Selys, 1854 -- Dragonflies > Aeshnidae Rambur, 1842: 181 (Darners) > Boyeria McLachlan, 1896: 424 (Spotted Darners).
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.

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
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Williamson, E. B. (Edward Bruce). "Two New North American Dragonflies (Odonata): Boyeria grafiana n. sp." Entomological News and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, vol. XVIII, no. 1 (January 1907): 1-5. Philadelphia PA: Entomological Rooms of The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1907.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/26363476/