Prince Baskettail Dragonfly Habitats: Spotted, Wing-Patched Dark Body

Summary: North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats get base-, mid-, tip-patched wings, ringed, spotted dark bodies and straight or v-shaped claspers.

prince baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps); Harry P. Leu Gardens, Orlando, Orange County, central Florida; Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 22:21:53: Eric Haley (pondhawk), CC by 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats advocate naturalism over cultivation in clean-, muddy- and sandy-watered distribution ranges from Nova Scotia through Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Ontario and New Brunswick and everywhere in-between.

Prince baskettails bear their common name for bigness and eggs borne on abdominal tips and the scientific name Epitheca princeps ("upon a case [for a] royal"). Scientific consensus in the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, whose 21st Bulletin of American Odonatology covers Chile's neotropical dragonflies and Hawaii's odonates, contributes to common names. Descriptions in 1861 by Hermann August Hagen (May 30, 1817-Nov. 9, 1893), zoology student of Martin Heinrich Rathke (Aug. 25, 793-Sept. 3, 1860), dominate scientific designations.

Prince baskettail life cycles expect permanent ponds and quiet reaches of lakes and slow-flowing rivers and streams with clear, muddy or sandy waters and submerged vegetation.

January through December function as earliest to latest flight seasons even though June and July furnish wildlife mapping opportunities throughout coastal and inland prince baskettail niches.

Prince baskettails go from just before sunrise to just after sunset on flapping, flitting, fluttering, gliding, hovering, sailing, slow-beat forages and patrols with wings slightly raised. They hang with raised wings and upward-curled abdomens, darner-like vertically, from woody plant-top twiggy undersides and harass odonates at 3.28- to 9.84-foot (1- to 3-meter) heights. Itineraries involve early morning-, early evening-peaked aquatic mating and terrestrial foraging, feeding swarms with baskettails, darners and river cruisers, leeward-sheltering from winds and near-, over-water patrols.

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

Immature prince baskettails keep their bodies brown and yellow-marked and their eyes red-brown even though dark-bodied, mature females and males know respectively red-gray and emerald eyes.

Incomplete metamorphosis links round eggs loosened from orange balls on abdominal tips in 1,000-plus-egg, 1.5-foot (0.46-meter) strings onto submerged vegetation, larvae, naiads or nymphs and tenerals. Immature stages metamorphose into shiny-winged, tender-bodied, weak-flying tenerals that manage physical and sexual maturation and muster permanent colors before mating and manipulating eggs into ovipositing sites. Aphids, beetles, borers, caddisflies, copepods, crane flies, dobsonflies, gnats, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, rotifers, scuds, water fleas and worms nourish baskettail members of the Corduliidae emerald dragonfly family.

North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to 1.66 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 prince baskettails.

Bronze-brown, dull green or red-brown eyes, orange ball-tipped, thickened abdomens and straight claspers long as the ninth and tenth abdominal segments qualify as adult female hallmarks. Mature males reveal black-brown base-, mid-, tip-patched, brittle, clear, stiff wings, black-brown legs, shiny black-brown thoraxes and white-ringed, yellow-, side-spotted abdomens with black-brown, large v-shaped claspers. Adults show off 2.21- to 2.68-inch (56- to 68-millimeter) head-body lengths, 1.65- to 1.93-inch (42- to 49-millimeter) abdomens and 1.49- to 1.69-inch (38- to 43-millimeter) hindwings.

Base-, mid-, tip-patched wings, pale-ringed, pale-spotted black-brown bodies and straight or v-shaped claspers tell prince baskettails from other odonates in North American prince baskettail dragonfly habitats.

prince baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps); Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Wednesday, June 28, 2017: 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:

prince baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps); Harry P. Leu Gardens, Orlando, Orange County, central Florida; Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 22:21:53: Eric Haley (pondhawk), CC by 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Epitheca_princeps3.jpg; pondhawk, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/38686613@N08/

prince baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps); Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Prince William County, Northern Virginia; Wednesday, June 28, 2017: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/34792580033/

For further information:

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